Where is the Kindness We Seek? (I)

In his letter to the church in Galatia, St. Paul famously lists the fruits of the Holy Spirit, one of which is kindness. Kindness is treated in another book by Adam Philips, the English literary scholar and psychoanalyst whose other very valuable books I have discussed here and here as part of an ongoing if ad hoc series of reflections reconsidering the relationship between Christianity and psychoanalysis.

This latest book to be considered is co-authored with the historian Barbara Taylor. On Kindness is a short book centred around the question: if kindness if the thing we most wish to see in, and receive from, other people, why do we stint so much when it comes to practicing it ourselves? How can we hope for something in others when we are so unsure of offering it ourselves?

As I make my way through this book, I shall have more to say on it.

Continues.