Kindness seems to have been a topic of conversation over recent years, but in my view there is still not enough evidence that the concept has really taken hold. It seems that the world’s tendency for unkindness is rampant, whereas if we saw an abundance of kindness, care and consideration we would be experiencing a very different place.
Kindness is at the core of the very nature of God, and as we are in His image, so for us it is a fruit of the Holy Spirit … a manifestation of God living in us.
Peter uses poetry to highlight many thoughts and ideas that will lead us down this train of thought. There is a romanticism in his writing, which should be no surprise for poetry, but it is not a naivety. The crafted language communicates clear messages.
Poems like A Vast Existence offer a lovely sense of peace, drawing the reader in to the landscape with a sense of awe. In fact, an ongoing theme is of the vastness of God, the awe and wonder of our place in such an enormous cosmos, that could only have been created.
Alongside this beauty and wonder, the author is seeing a despairing world, a society of mental health issues, addiction, hunger and rage, with little hope or mercy.
So these poems are a call to action. A call for us to wake up, lift our eyes to see the world around us, to be a generation of carers, to have compassion, to be carers for each other as well as our precious environment.
Generation Care, by Peter Coates, is available here.
Thanks to the author for a gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.
