President Barack Obama
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
Please accept my sincere congratulations on your historic inauguration as 44th president of the United States of America.
As a person of deep, abiding faith, I pray that the Divine Force working through you, together with the support of all of the august cabinet members of your administration, guides and directs you to make the right and wisest decisions in all of your undertakings as leader of our great nation.
Back in July (2008) at Town Hall in Morton Grove and Skokie, Illinois, I introduced to your good friend and coworker on legislation, (with whom you served on the Senate Judiciary Committee), Illinois State Senator Ira Silverstein (8th District), the idea of initiating and promoting a "National Kindness Movement" in America - a day that the "family of America" would honor and celebrate annually in our great country; a day in which solidarity, brotherly love, fellowship, and unity, would reach their highest peaks. (Enclosed is my introductory letter that I sent to the Senator prior to our first meeting).
Also, Mr. President, on several occasions, I presented my case for a "National Kindness Movement/Day" to Kris Sadur, the Outreach Coordinator/Consumer Advocate for U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (District 9, Illinois). She said that she thought it was a great idea. One time she told me that she forwarded my writing that I gave to her to Washington, for Representative Schakowsky to read. On another occasion, she told me that the Congresswoman was in receipt of my writing (copy enclosed), and was supportive of the proposed idea.
Mr. President, as you are well aware, the United States was one of 8 countries that participated in the "World Kindness Movement," formed on September 20, 1997. At a conference in Tokyo in 1998, the "Movement" convened, and decreed November 13, 2000 as "World Kindness Day." On "World Kindness Day," the human relations could be realized, globally, seems, when you consider all of the chaos in the world, to have fallen on deaf ears. The "World Kindness Movement" has gained little, if any, momentum and traction. There never was enough publicity, the citizenry of the world, of the necessity and importance for performing intentionally "acts of kindness" regularly; on a daily basis, so as to effect lasting and positive attitudinal CHANGE! The "Movement" never came close to becoming an epidemic, what Malcolm Gladwell calls "The Tipping Point." (CONSIDER THIS, Mr. President: Although "Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together" (Goethe), Australia is the only country in the world that has declared "National Kindness Day." It was established in 1996, and is honored and celebrated annually on November 6th. This day now is the first of 16 days devoted to kindness and unity).
The United States delegate to the "Movement" is its "national kindness organization," called "Random Acts of Kindness Foundation." Although the "family of America" benefits daily from random "acts of kindness," these "acts" are performed "at random" - that is, without method, deliberation, or conscious decision; by chance. Leaving these "acts" to chance produces chance results.
Moving forward and upward Mr. President, as I visualized it, on "National Kindness Day" in America, the manifestation of overt "acts of kindness" will be deliberately, consciously, and intentionally pursued by the "family of America." America's "National Kindness Movement" to "power-up" kindness to its uppermost level, will have reached its "tipping point."
Following on the heels of an extensive, full-scale media blitz (i.e., word-of-mouth, YouTube videos, radio addresses, public television, text-messaging and blogs, kindness tags/badges and the distribution of leaflets to school-age kids and their families, visible reminders posted in hallways and conspicuous places, and other memory joggers), the infusion of "kindness-in-action" will be so permanent in the minds of the "family of America," that its "staying power" will "spill over" and work its way, as an integral part, into the fabric of their "total personalities" and their "total living situations."
Mr. President, if America becomes a magnet for kindness, that's what America will get. "Kindness" will become a powerful instrument for PEACE and CHANGE. The rise in CONNECTEDNESS - to our highest power, God; to community; to family and friends; to all races and ethnicities; to nation and all of humanity; and to animal and plant life, as well, could conceivably "go off the charts."
As people "go up" in the commission of "acts of kindness," they "go down" in the commission of "acts of violence." "Where there is "inner kindness," there is no outer harm." The mind cannot think two thoughts at one and the same time, and since people act the way they think, "thinking kindness" will "crowd out" and "down out" thoughts and "acts of violence."
Mr. Present, you have the power to authorize a "National Kindness Day" in America, as an accomplished, historic "fact of life," without introducing congressional approval and legislation. In the name of, and glory, to God, I ask you to "take up the gauntlet" for this noble cause; to say "Yes" to that. "If not you, then Who?" "And, if not now, then When?" Mr. President, YOU are "The Tipping Point."
God bless you, the First Lady, Malia, and Sasha,
God bless America,
Sincerely,
Norman Kozak