"Kindness expresses the gentleness of the soul."

This quote is from a meditation series by Deepak Chopra & Oprah Winfrey, titled "Expanding Your Happiness." Deepak Chopra uses it as the centering thought on Day 11 of this series.

When I heard him say this, I was flooded with memories of a little girl living on Walker Air Force Base in Roswell, New Mexico. She went to a little Catholic school in town from kindergarten halfway through third grade. She was lithe and shy and had dark curly hair and soulful eyes. This little girl felt and understood things she had no words for and she loved easily and openly. Others had a deep and natural inclination to protect her. One of the nuns took her mother aside when she was in first grade and told her that she had been given a very special child to raise. The little girl's mother agreed. The nun went on to say that God had his hand on this child. Years later the mother would tell her teenage daughter how that had frightened her. The teenager...