My daughter told me a boy told her friend that she smells.
She told him "That's not very nice." He replied, "Why are you always so kind?"
In the moment I was proud of her for attempting to protect her friend, confront the wrong, and speak her mind.
However, I was also taken back by the boys choice of words...kind.
He didn't say "nice"...and I am grateful.

Nice announces to me "successful" socialization, an appeasing others attitude, with a shallow and spineless understanding of any truth; to put it frankly, a cowardliness. There is death in it.

Kind declares to me, thoughtful, helpful, merciful, honest, and alive with grace. It rings like a bell in my ears that maybe my daughter gets something, that so many us don't or have lost. Kindness speaks as an expression of the tension between the truth and tenderness. It acknowledges the broken and still see's the beauty. It's the harder higher road.

And it's lovely, especially on her...