Seeking the Kindly Made

One of the dearest, most enduring daydreams that my brother and I share is about the "Kindly Made." These fictional people are a special group drawn from many places, who are kind, intelligent, good-humored, compassionate... list the best qualities you could wish for in someone, and they have it. They have no one religion, rather taking what is best and shared from all of them, managing to be true to personal conviction while remaining in harmony with each other. Kindly Made people create other Kindly Made through parenting and also through serving as examples to others. Knowing a Kindly Made person makes you a better person, because they allow you to be the best of yourself and show you how to find deeper goodness. There is an element of the supernatural in them, because in part they are beyond normal human nature. They are the best and brightest of every aspect of being human. You want to be with them, you want to be like them. The Kindly Made are drawn together by some gentle force that causes them to seek out others like themselves. They never stop joining and seeking, hoping to find each other and help each other.

The opposite of the Kindly Made are the "Rocky Ground." Rocky Ground are selfish people, mean and small of spirit, narrow and barren of sweetness. They might not necessarily be evil; some act very correctly indeed, but the poverty of soul they experience is unmistakeable. Rocky Ground people do not foster goodness, nor are they any better than they have to be. There's a staleness to the breath in their bodies, without freshness or joy.

Evil people are just evil. They don't have any special name. Evil is evil.

The majority of us ordinary people are what we called "Turning." The Turning are just that, people who are constantly turning this way or that, turning better or turning stagnant or turning bad. We do all three, all day long. Eventually though, there's a trend in us, and we turn more towards one way than another. If all is well and the person Turns Rightly, they could become Kindly Made with the right opportunities. If the person Turns Away from open-ness and light, then they become Rocky Ground, where no potential can prosper. And Turning Evil is just becoming evil, the result of choices that were made. You can choose any path, but eventually you're going to get into a pattern, and that's how you Turn.

Now all of this is just make-believe. It's a way of expressing longing for the kind of people who would love you and nurture you, be your friends and mentors and fellow travellers along life's way. It's a way to describe the pain of loneliness and exclusion. It's an explanation of the frustration you feel with the lack of love in the world. It's a way to cling to hope, to see potential, to find what is best in yourself and try to see it in others. It's a way to acknowledge the peril of failing to grow, of ossifying, of becoming a small mean thing.

There are no real Kindly Made, not the way they are in the story, but there are people who come close. The hope is real, and the wish to know them is real, but the best we can hope for is to find others who are Turning Rightly. Finding kind people of good intent is all we can do. We have to seek them out, as the Kindly Made seek each other. We have to join with them, as the Kindly Made do, and support each other. If only the Kindly Made were real, then there would be truly good people and they would love each other and love us and help us to be the best we could be. But all we have is each other, hopefully Turning Rightly together.

You have to be with other people to come close. To always be alone is to be Turning Away. Living inside your head is Turning Away. Closing yourself off from risk, inconvenience, and the aggravation of real people with their silly bullshit, that is Turning Away. You don't have to always be having a good time. The Kindly Made, if they existed, would live in the real world with its irritations and its hurts. We poor Turning, who do exist, have to make do with each other and make our ways through the world as it is.

The best goal we could have would be to aspire to Turning Rightly. Become as close to Kindly Made as possible. To find the best in yourself and other people and to nurture that. To become loving and intelligent and humorous and kind, developing your talents and interests and seeking others who love and inspire you. Wanting to love and inspire other people, wanting to teach and learn and explore with each other. That's the best we can do in this world.

I have gotten very lucky and discovered some Turning Rightly here. The three examples that come most readily to mind are: Constance: an elderly lady who lived through the Blitz and now creeps very, very slowly with her walker, just a couple of feet at a time, but who continues steadfastly from point A to point B because that's what she's always done and that's what she's going to continue doing. Rosalie: has a stubborn and inquiring nature coupled with a keen sense of the absurd; so much like a water-worn rock, all smooth reason with no wounding edges. Susan: wry sense of humor and a deep sense of perspective, able to meet people at whatever level they are on without condescencion or over-reaching.

C.S. Lewis was most definitely a Turning Rightly. He wrote about the Kindly Made, but he didn't call them that; they run like a current through his non-fiction writings. He had such a clear picture of what we could be like, he believed in the potential for people to be Kindly Made, although he saw humanity pretty clearly for the meager things we are. He still thought we could become good, said that we could Turn Rightly, but his words were so much better than mine. Over and over again, I meet the shock of recognition when I read his work, meeting the Kindly Made in what he said.

I hope to be Turning Rightly and to know more people who have the same goal. They won't be using those words, but they'll have the same goal. I know that there are no Kindly Made to take me in and love me, but there are people who have made themselves kind, and that is plenty.