Somewhere in this book so sprawling with fresh ideas and thoughtful images, the author makes the statement that "Kindness is our natural state. The acting of kindness allows us to find a deep and profound connection."

"A deep and profound connection."

How true that is, and how important! We are not designed to live alone, to exist in isolation from other human beings. Most of us spend our lives trying to find meaningful connections with others, to become part of the whole of human existence. And, almost miraculously, when we are kind to others, we are making those connections.

I remember a man in one of my parishes who seemed to be the very soul of kindness. He told me once that he had decided several years earlier that he wanted in his lifetime to do a thousand kind deeds for others. I think he had already reached a number above three hundred.

He had one of the sunniest dispositions I have ever known, and everybody loved him. He seemed simply to exude kindness to everyone, wherever he went. I doubt if he ever met a stranger, because he was so immediately kind to everyone he encountered.

He was making that "deep and profound connection," all the time, wherever he went.

If God is love, as the Bible says, then love is at the very center of our existence. Every act of kindness connects us to that great love. Deeds of kindness consistently relate us to the heart of being itself. They Interswitch us with God and the universe and justify our existence on this planet.

I think I knew this instinctively, as a person who has always identified with the Christian faith and the ministry of Christ, but this book has made me more conscious of that wonderful relationship than I ever was before now. Having read it has caused me to remember it every time I do something thoughtful for one of my neighbors, or even when I contemplate reacting to the need of someone I have just met and don't really know very well.

This our "natural state," the author writes, the state where we truly belong, where our souls always have a place, where they find the real joy and fullness of their own existence. I never thought of that before reading the manuscript of this exceptional volume. I know that it is very true. I shall always be greatly indebted to James McReynolds for bringing it so forcefully to my attention.

He is indeed, as Dr. Norman Vincent Peale once anointed him as the Minister of Joy to the World.