There are some things in life I have no adequate explanation for. Some of the suffering I witness in my job as a nurse, for example. The mindless, de-personalised hatred that breaks out around the world. The suffering of little children. Rather than glib explanations, I tend to just think 'I don't understand' and so I have to fall back on what I think I do understand.

As I've grown older, I have come to see kindness as a touchstone and measuring-stick of spirituality and the best it means to be a human being. What I'd call the 'sanity of kindness'. I think we are most sane, most whole, most in touch with God... when (in our little fallible ways) we are being kind.

I see kindness, again and again, in the world. I think the grace and love of God is so often at work between human beings. Little acts of unseen kindness. And so perhaps we become through what we do, and may grow - in the end - into the sanity and wholeness and compassionate heart of God.

Suffering can be caused by human selfishness, but life can also be tragic without human cause. The only response I can think of to this suffering... is compassion and gentle kindness. And prayer of course.