Column: In these difficult times, choose kindness over bitterness

My husband John and I just returned from a long-planned vacation in southern Illinois.  I attended my 50+1 high school reunion in Springfield, Illinois, and then journeyed on to the St. Louis, Missouri area to visit family and friends.

Unfortunately. due to COVID, this reunion had been postponed several times.  As  I looked at the gas pump throughout our holiday, I secretly wished that we could have gone on this trip last year when originally planned.  According to AAA, the 2021 Michigan average gas price ranged from $2.17 to $3.43.  Now it’s $4.94.  And traveling through Illinois, the average now is $5.31.

How do we decide our attitudes during this time of skyrocketing prices?  I recently heard on a podcast that most people – no matter what country they live in –blame the government of their country; it’s the easiest target.

Inflation is worldwide and it's hard to grasp that vast a viewpoint.  So we blame who and what is closest to us even though the economic issues are complex and multi-faceted.  We often find it easier to be bitter and respond with selfishness and sarcasm.

I found economist Dr. Charles Calomiris’s biblical insights helpful in considering what my attitude should be during this stressful economic time.  In his discussion of "The Book of Ruth", he states that it was written c.1300 BCE at a time of continuing political and economic crises in Israel.  An economic crisis (in this case a famine) causes an Israelite family to move to neighboring Moab.  Moabite woman Ruth marries one of the Israelite sons of this family.

When the father and the son die, Ruth makes a surprising choice.  She chooses the difficult path of remaining loyal to her mother-in-law Naomi, who has released her from any requirement of care, and remaining loyal to Israel’s God rather than staying with an easier life among her own family in Moab.  Her righteous actions lead ultimately to her happy remarriage in Israel to Boaz.  Ruth ends up becoming the great-grandmother of King David.

(Calomiris, Charles W.  (2011) “A Spiritual Response to the Economic Crisis?”  Faith and Economics, No. 38, (Fall 2011) 67-68.)

According to Calomiris, Ruth chooses “Chesed” in her choices during this economic and personal crisis.  Chesed (Hebrew: חֶסֶד, also Romanized ḥesed) is a word that means kindness or love between people, specifically of the devotional piety of people towards God as well as of love or mercy of God towards humanity.  She chooses to live a life of love towards others and towards the God of Israel.  She could have been bitter, angry, and downright nasty to others.  She made a distinct choice.

Ruth chose to love when, as a childless widow, she was among the most vulnerable and oppressed in her social class.  She chose kindness when in her grief in losing her husband she could have chosen bitterness and despair.

When she moved with her mother-in-law Naomi to Israel, she didn’t know her story would have a happy ending.  All she knew was to respond to her life circumstances with grace and compassion.

Yes, gas prices are high.  Yes, it’s getting more difficult to purchase the food we need.  Yes, we are all making economic choices that sometimes really stink.  I believe that God is calling both you and me to respond to these difficult times with chesed, to choose kindness and compassion rather than anger and bitterness.  I am not saying it’s easy.  It isn’t.

In the second book of the “Harry Potter” series, Albus Dumbledore tells Harry, “It is our choices…that show that we truly are far more than our abilities.”

Our choices define our character, who we are, our authentic self.  And as a believer in God through Jesus Christ, we can depend upon God’s grace and Spirit to help us choose chesed.

Melodye Surgeon VanOudheusden is the pastor of St. Paul's United Methodist Church in Monroe. She can be reached at pastormelodyevano@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: In these difficult times, choose kindness over bitterness