John

In today’s world, it can be challenging, to put it mildly, to believe in human goodness. There is so much out there that makes it easy to believe humanity is going to hell in a hand basket, as the old saying goes.

Spirit

Berna and Johnny came from Roman Catholic families. (Although they no longer practice that religion.) One of the basic teachings of the Roman Catholic Church in those days was all humans were born sinners. Even innocent, little newborn babies!

Many Catholic people grew up believing they were basically evil, and headed for hell. That is UNLESS they regularly confessed their sins in the way the church required them to, went to church services every Sunday, etc. etc.

It was no wonder so many youngsters in those days grew up doubting their worth as humans, and their basic goodness as children of Goddess/God.

Berna

Here’s an example of that. One day, when my niece was six years old, she went to school where a classmate was celebrating her birthday. At that age, it was customary to give all the children in the classroom something sweet to eat on their birthdays. The mother of the birthday girl, who had come into the classroom, pointed at another child and said to her daughter, “Don’t give her candy.”

That child started to cry, and my niece tried to comfort her by saying, “You can have my candy.” This turned out to be typical of my niece’s kind behavior, kindness she still shows today at the age of 29.

Spirit

This is a beautiful example of kindness! By offering her own candy, the niece showed goodness to all her classmates, the teacher, and the mother. This simple sentence, “You can have my candy,” had an impact in many ways on the different people present at that moment.

The niece responded without thinking about the effect it could have or what it could give her. It came from the depth of her being. You will never know how what you say or do affects others. But you don’t need to know. You only need to be kind from the depth of your heart, like the niece did!

One of our favorite storytellers is the popular speaker, Neal Foard. Listen to Neal talking about human goodness here.

• Neal Foard on Human Goodness