Someone a little nicer

Let them eat cake January 15, 2012

Posted by Jane Matthews in acts of kindness.
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The cake of kindness seems a bit of a theme this week. First off daughter Amy and I were glued to Sports Relief’s Great Celebrity Bake Off. Watching folk we might have glimpsed on the small screen at some point (there is rarely much celeb in celebrity I find) get the giggles over a line of tragically sunken banana loaves was great fun. But the real purpose of the series was to recruit viewers to organise their own fundraising cake sale. Here’s the link if you’re as inspired as we were:

http://www.sportrelief.com/whats-on/tv-listings/the-great-sport-relief-bake-off

And then there was this fantastically sweet story in the Mail about a woman, Cath Webb, who decided to bake one Victoria Sponge a day and give it away to cheer someone up:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2084478/Good-Samaritan-Teacher-plans-bake-cake-day-year.html

In the nine months since she started she’s baked for everyone from family and friends to hospital wards and the homeless.

I’ve no doubt her cakes have gone down a storm and put a smile on many faces. But what really impressed me about this story was that Cath has had the courage to share what she’s doing. That can’t have been easy, which was something I was discussing with a friend yesterday.

Our instinct is to keep our heads down. Not to make a fuss. And certainly not to seek attention or praise for the things we do well or the good that we do.

And yet, and yet…if we don’t share by example then there is no chance at all that we might influence one other person to be a little kinder themselves. It is by giving of ourselves that we give permission to others to do the same.

Marianne Williamson’s wonderfully wise words from A Return to Love came to mind as we discussed our own fear of standing out. Of seeing in someone’s eyes the thought ‘who does she think she is?’

“There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.” is what Williamson wrote.

It’s one thing being kind for charity if you are a ‘celebrity’ (which is not to downplay the fact that those who were featured gave up two days to work for nothing.)

For the Cath Webbs of this world, as for us, the recipe is more complicated: along with kindness we need to mix in courage and commitment – trusting that by putting ourselves out there the impact on others may be greater still.