The Disruptive Power of Kindness
Valentine’s Day is often wrapped in commercialized romance, but what if love is more than sentimentality? In this episode, Dr. Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen explore an aspect of love that we all need—kindness. But not the shallow, conflict-avoidant “niceness” we often mistake for kindness. Instead, they dive into the disruptive, provocative nature of true kindness—kindness that challenges, disrupts old patterns, and calls us into deeper growth.
Kindness asks us to receive care and, sometimes, even risk disconnection for the sake of deeper intimacy. Together, Dan and Rachael unpack how true kindness is an act of restoration. They discuss the surprising, ennobling nature of kindness and how it reflects the heart of God—a love that offers goodness even when we least deserve it.
So, as we navigate a day often filled with roses and greeting cards, let’s consider the kind of love that truly transforms—the kind that sees, knows, and calls us toward who we long to become.
Episode Transcript:
Dan: Valentine’s Day. Does it draw for you, Rachael, wonderful memories?
Rachael: No. Some, I feel like when I was younger and you got to make Valentine’s for your classmates, and maybe the first you had a crush on would give you a valentine, even though they were giving everyone else a Valentine, it would mean something. Or I do have some fond memories from grade school and making Valentine cards for all my classmates and coming home with all, because at the end of the, I’m a lover, I love Stevie Wonder song, I Just Called to Say I Love You, which is a whole song of basically like, it’s not about any of these 32 million holidays. I’m just calling to say, I love you. So the thought of like, I love you, it really warms my heart. But no Valentine’s Day for many seasons was a day that I felt maybe some envy, maybe some mockery, also some intrigue of how a day dedicated to St. Valentine, who ultimately was martyred, became a cheesy commercial holiday.
Dan: Well, that’s what I link… I link martyrdom to Valentine’s Day. So for me, it’s fourth grade. Ms. Worth, this is the teacher who reminded me of the wicked witch of the West, who with her wisened finger pointed at me and said you’ll amount to nothing.
Rachael: Wow.
Dan: Because I couldn’t spell. This is the teacher that when I wrote the first book, I did literally see if she was still alive. She wasn’t fortunately or unfortunately, because I wanted to send her a book her and sign it and to be able to say, as with regard to spelling, spellcheck, saved my life. But it’s also the class where, again, remember how old I am. This is a day in which Valentine’s and cards were distributed not equally. Meaning you could send a valentine or put a valentine into your little brown bag that you put at your desk by choice, not everyone. So literally by the end of Valentine’s Day, I think I had like two,
Rachael: Oh, I can’t…
Dan: Well, it gets worse. It gets worse. And so Ms. Worth, of course, came to my desk, looked into my little brown bag and saw that there were two. And announces, apparently no one’s given Dan a Valentine and taking humiliation to a whole new level to announce it. But nonetheless, to be able to say there’s a lot of mixed emotions about this day.
Rachael: Well, it’s a huge, even in a marriage relationship, I feel like it’s a huge setup for disappointment, for demand, for comparison, or a sense of, are other people doing this better? It helps me a little bit to have a toddler who’s in some ways seeing hearts and wanting to talk about love. And I think it’s interesting, even in the face of just the story you told, which I have to say is just really, I’m still kind of stuck there with fourth grade Dan. I just feel very protective. And I think it’s interesting because what we want to talk about today is an aspect of love that is for all of us, and that is kindness. And I just think, man, so many people don’t deserve kindness. So that’s really where my heart went. It’s like, what if I don’t want to be kind to people? But then I know the Bible says kindness is like heaping heavy coals, and I think we get really confused about what kindness is. So we wanted to take an opportunity on a day that commercially is dedicated to love, to break through some of the distraction, the kind of fluffiness, the shallowness,
Dan: The warfare, and that’s related to this damn holiday.
Rachael: But I do want to pause Dan and just say, I really hate that that happened to you and your young heart.
Dan: Well, and the first time I told Becky that story, she wept. And I of course as not a terribly mature human being. Wanted to shove each of those tears back in her eyes like, I’m fine. It’s no big deal. It’s a sad story, but whatever. But when we got near talking about what we were going to do for Valentine’s Day this year, she literally came up and put her hands on my face. And that gesture, again, we touch one another’s faces often enough, but this moment, putting our hands on my face and saying, do you want to avoid this holiday again? And that alone was painfully brilliant. She’s acknowledging, I don’t like the holiday. No matter what work I’ve done with regard to Ms. Worth, I don’t like the holiday. And yet, on the other hand, there is something more than Hallmark cards and the commercialization of a particular moment in time where love is being reflected upon. But her tenderness, but her provocation, the combination thereof is how I want to define the nature of kindness, Attunement that enters in to disrupt processes that have enabled you to adapt. Kindness is not niceness. No, we’ve said this a million times, but it has to be said a million more. A nice person’s really avoiding conflict by doing something that actually bears some goodness. Yet in part the goal, conscious or not, is just to escape conflict. When Becky put her hands on my face and said, do you want to avoid this holiday as you have? What she’s inviting me to is, do you want to mature in this area? Do you want to grow? Will you let me celebrate you? And I’m like, well, I’m good at celebrating you, but what? So let’s just begin. Kindness is disruptive.
Rachael: And I could say, for a long time, I would’ve said I was a nice person, maybe not necessarily a kind person. And it was a trauma response, not just insincerity. It was a way of surviving, or some would call it fawning, to make sure other people felt okay and good and safe so that I could get some kind of connection or care. And I do think kindness in some ways requires a willingness to lose connection for the sake of a more deeper intimacy and care. And that’s taken me, it’s still, it’s, it’s taking me. It takes work and it takes courage and it takes a deeper kind of love. And I would say, I said before, my husband is incredibly kind man, and that kindness is very provocative to me. It’s not. I receive it, and sometimes it is that kind of balm of comfort that I didn’t even know I needed. Oftentimes it is like, oh, now I got to fight. Now I got to try to fight you more ’cause you’re trying to, you’re coming in here offering something that of course I want, but I don’t trust. Then, now, I got to convince you that’s a stupid idea to bring that to me. That’s a little bit what I hear you saying, Becky’s risking in this moment that she knows she’s provoking a place that is vulnerable and could bring up some defenses, but her tenderness is also inviting a desire to grow.
Dan: Well, you put it brilliantly. You’re disrupting that which is not of God while inviting with no demand, no effort to control and require change, but that vulnerability that’s bold, the vulnerability that doesn’t demand comfort, convenience, just let’s have no conflict, but inviting into the becoming of who we actually long to be and may even claim that we wish to be. That becomes then a very different way of, shall we say, inviting. Our publisher had the book, the new marriage book, Deep Rooted Marriage. They said they wanted it out toward the end of January because they want it to sell over Valentine’s Day. And I’m like, okay, alright, but did you all read the book? This isn’t like a little Happy Valentine’s Day book. This is a book looking at the intersection of trauma and inviting people into what actually needs to happen in order to grow intimacy. And the brilliant, beautiful editor that we were privileged to work with, Carrie just said, she said, well, isn’t that what kindness is about? And I’m like, oh, yes, that’s a nice reminder. Yeah, kindness is a restorative redemptive process that without demand or control, it all lures invites and in one sense offers what we don’t deserve. I’m taken to that Luke 6:35 passage. “Love your enemies and you will be sons and daughters of the most high, for he himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.” Again, I’m not calling myself merely ungrateful and evil, but the point of surprise, the very nature of kindness is this is not what you would expect. The holy, righteous God of the universe offering kindness to ungrateful and evil human beings. So in that surprise, in that disturbance, there is for most of us, not an immediate sense of like, oh, thank you so much. That’s exactly what my body and soul needed. Maybe eventually, but usually not at first. So I think in part of that is if what we’re expecting intuitively is judgment, condemnation, when we are offered something that isn’t vengeance but invitation to goodness, it inevitably is arousing. I think the deepest desire of our human heart to know compassion, to know someone knows me. I mean, Becky’s hands on my face naming that about Valentine’s Day. I’m like, oh, you remember my story? Oh, and more than that, you’re dreaming a different story on my behalf. That’s so ennobling.
Rachael: What I hear you putting words to as well is the experience of someone having more imagination for you in a moment than you have for yourself. And doing so with some kind of knowledge. I mean, you can be kind without a knowledge of a person. One of my practices in this season where it feels like everyone is overwhelmed and dysregulated and mean is like, okay, what does it mean to disrupt that with kindness? Doesn’t always mean then someone responds well to that, right? Because it’s provocative, but it can be disruptive to a process. But there’s something about when you experience kindness from a loved one that knows you and knows something of the suffering that you bear and get in the midst of that, they’re willing to suffer some of that suffering to get close to you, to imagine more for you than you can imagine for yourself. And when you say ennobling, I don’t really know what that word means, but that’s what I imagine that word means is kind of an opening, an awakening and encourage, growing courage. But if that’s not what the word means, you can tell me the real meaning.
Dan: Well, let’s spend a moment on that notion of ennobling, and you’ll have to help me because I forget movies, but alright, the ending of the Ring series where you have these lovely short beings called
Rachael: Hobbits
Dan: And they’re there as the king in one sense, and his bride bow…
Rachael: Being anointed as the king and queen, and then they bow before them.
Dan: And that, I mean, I can have tears if I wanted in an instant thinking about that image of these rugged, not comparatively like attractive human beings, but they are heroes. They would hardly even name that. But for nobility to bow, there is something about that awakens, I think in every human heart, something of no one would bow to me, I don’t deserve it. It’s such a surprise. Now, again, I wouldn’t say I was that surprised by Becky’s hands on my face. On the other hand, the brilliance of what she brought also brought me to a point of feeling again, like I am being honored and I don’t deserve it. But instead of looking at the contradiction, I’m actually partaking of her nobility. And in that I’m feeling ennobled, capable of bringing back nobility to another. So I think you’ve named so much of what Valentine’s Day is meant to be, that we see one another’s faces that were captured by the glory of the other. And in some sense, when you’re captured by the glory of another, it isn’t that you’re an equal, of course you’re an equal. But in one sense, you’re captured by their glory. There is something of the awe of being in their presence where again, we’re not talking hierarchical good or bad, more power, less power, but when you are captured by another’s glory, there’s a sense in which you bow to them. And in that, especially in the contradiction of my wife, metaphorically bowing to me, I’m like, no, you are so much a better human being than me, and yet you’re inviting me to become. So yeah, I’m actually thinking I could enjoy Valentine’s Day.
Rachael: Yeah, it’s actually kind of fun to be in awe of the people you love and to want to call something of that forward. Invite something more.
Dan: Well, let’s remind folks of what we’ve talked about before. It becomes in one sense, an Allender Center theme, but let’s just say it’s pretty biblical. Romans 2:4, and that is it’s the kindness of God that leads to repentance. And then one of those tragic phrases that needs to be engaged and why Paul asks, do you treat the kindness of God with contempt? So take us through,
Rachael: We got to talk about contempt, don’t we?
Dan: Yeah, got to. So I mean, I think in some ways what we’re naming is that kindness, of course opens the heart to what it is we were most meant for. Honor, intimacy, connection. In one sense, the mutuality of praise, joy of union. But in that repentance, meaning the open door to allow our hearts to long for healing, to long to be healed, to long to be what we’re meant to be, we’ve had to deal with the issue of contempt.
Rachael: Yeah
Dan: Yeah. So you go first.
Rachael: No, I don’t want to go.
Dan: You go first.
Rachael: Well.
Dan: Should we do rock, scissors, paper? Nobody can see us, so we’ll have to…
Rachael: I mean, I will just say obviously, I mean, we’re just in a culture of contempt right now. So I don’t think contempt is a foreign concept for any of us that we don’t understand. I mean, contempt is a form of hatred. Whether that hatred is coming across explicitly or as a form of indifference, I think sometimes people think like, oh no, I don’t have contempt. I just don’t care. It’s like as if that’s not a form of contempt. Contempt is not just something we project onto others or feel towards others. It’s often something we can turn inward toward ourselves or feel toward ourselves. It certainly is a form of violence, and it is at odds in opposition to kindness. And I have already stated that I’m going to season, of confronting in some ways, God inviting me in a very similar way to Becky inviting you, right? I’m not asking you to give up. I’m not demanding that you give up all these things, all this unforgiveness you have in your heart. Well, this contempt you have, this contempt. You have nurtured towards others as a way to keep your heart safe, from disappointment, from harm, from abandonment, whatever. Whatever it is that our contempt serves, that we think it serves, that we think it protects. But God has definitely been tenderly saying, this is harming you. It’s like carrying around heavy bags of rocks. It’s weighing you down, it’s making you sick, and it’s not actually keeping you safe. It’s keeping you cut off and malnourished. So I feel like I’m well acquainted with contempt in this season, just after a lot of relational heartache over the past several years that I’m sure many people can relate to. When there is collective trauma on multiple fronts, it’s going to have impact on our relationships, on our communities. It’s going to intensify trauma, therefore the impact of trauma, therefore fragmentation and numbness and isolation and all the things that we talk about. So I do feel like it’s a season for myself personally and collectively where contempt just feels very quick and close.
Dan: Well, what a lovely passage to offer you, us, me, Ephesians 4:31, “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.” That’s quite a start to a conversation. So to own, oh, wait a minute, there are bitter realities you’re naming. And again, I don’t think you are unique in the reality of how that kind of violence, and I think it’s easy for people to go, well, I’m not that bitter rage and anger. Nah.
Rachael: Well, and I do want to name for me the way that manifests is like I just am. I withhold. It’s not like I actually assault or it’s like you will have nothing of me.
Dan: But when I go to the next portion of the passage, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice, it sounds exaggerative to a point where it’s so easy to go oh that’s not me
Rachael: That’s why I was saying what I wanted. That’s why I was sharing what I was sharing. Like, oh, well, I’m just withholding my goodness from people. It’s not like I’m fighting them.
Dan: Well, and the passage goes on to say, be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ, God forgave you. So when we talk about contempt, we can talk about other-centered contempt, which is how I think most people hear it. But we’ve underscored and many other podcasts that contempt is contempt and a lot of contempt, maybe the most substantial contempt is towards yourself. So you have more than likely bitterness towards yourself, rage and anger towards yourself, and you’re in a bar fight brawl against portions of yourself. Not only that, you slander yourself. What an idiot. What an idiot cannot find my keys. Why am I such an idiot? Those were sentences spoken, I’ll say within the last 24 hours. So by someone, I’m not going to name him. So when we begin to look at the intersection of the interior and the exterior, self contempt, other-centered contempt, you can’t divide this coin between heads and tails. It’s contempt and kindness, compassion, the forgiveness of the presence of Jesus within us to be able to go as an aging man who when I got up the other day and it sounded like I had a stick in my hands and I crack them, Becky starts laughing and she goes, oh, your body is making more sounds than it used to. I can’t say that the moment that that was spoken, I was fond of her. But the laughter, just the laughter had a kind of compassion. It wasn’t mockery, it wasn’t cruel. It actually was kind to be able to name. Wow, your body is making amazing sounds, just getting up. So the framework of being able to say compassion, kindness isn’t just good. It literally changes the very nature of how we come to our aging, to our own frailties, literally to our own sin. Can we actually believe it’s the kindness of God that meets the deepest failures we’ve ever perpetrated? That’s more than I know my own heart and body can truly bear.
Rachael: Oh, sorry, I was just taking that in and thinking about, in some ways there are probably places I can bear that. But then immediately parts of me that are like, Nope, can’t bear it.
Dan: Nope. No, just put it this way. I can bear being forgiven. Because in that sense, it’s the postponement or the annulling of vengeance or justice. But the idea that it’s more like, I won’t make you pay and you better be grateful that you’re not going to pay. It’s like, oh, well that’s fantastic. I’m not going to have to pay. But it’s harder than that. It’s not just mercy. That is the relenting of what justice would naturally bring. But compassion, you are alone. You are scared. And yeah, you do eat a lot when you are afraid or you do get triggered in this particular way, meaning compassion is, I know what has brought about the interiorization of this external response, and I feel grief. And I entered that as you did for me at the beginning, talking about Ms. Worth. I could see your face, people couldn’t see your face, but I could see your face and it was kind meaning you would take Ms. Worth on for me. But for my guess is if we knew Ms. Worth’s story, she probably wasn’t really enjoying being a fourth grade teacher, or at least she didn’t like me. And maybe there were plenty of good reasons, but also other reasons for the level of contempt she brought me. In other words, we don’t know one another’s stories. It doesn’t excuse, but it does leaven.
Rachael: And I think what I more felt in that moment was less. I did feel I want to take her on for sure. I think I felt even more, I wanted you to have another face, another presence of an adult looking at you, talking to you, speaking to you and protecting you. So I felt more like wanting to position myself between her and you with my face toward you, my face, and then I would turn my face toward her.
Dan: Well, that’s why Picasso has, I think, in so many ways, understood the nature of how we have to live within one sense facing those who have done us harm, but also simultaneously having a face that’s looking to the one who’s been harmed. So that Picasso simultaneity of two faces, I remember the first time I showed some Picasso to some of my young children, and they were like, that’s ugly. Why did he have two faces? This face doesn’t look very happy. This face looks happier. And I’m like, yes. Let’s talk about, we’ve talked about ambivalence now let’s talk about simultaneity as older adults now they look back to some of those conversations. Did you understand we were really young. When we talk about age appropriate conversations, that’s usually not bearing certain categories that might scar a child. They were like, we didn’t need to know about simultaneity when we were five and six years of age. We just thought it was a stupid painting. Well, now that you have a sense of it, it’s so important that we have that a face that looks out to those who have brought harm. And I think this is what in part Valentine’s Day holds. That we look at one another in a different way, but we also have that face that looks back out and goes, I will protect you. I will bring honor and goodness on your behalf. So all this conversation, again, let’s just assume that our two spouses are not going to hear it prior. So what are you thinking about doing on behalf of Michael now for Valentine’s Day.
Rachael: I’m laughing because in this conversation I’ve been thinking, what do I want to do for just the random people I encounter and my kids? And not that I wasn’t thinking about, Michael, it just Valentine’s Day became so much more expansive for me. And how we plan to spend at least a portion of this day is actually reflecting back to each other ways in which we are growing in love with parts of ourselves that personally we’re not fond of. So I’m not looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to speaking to him, but I’m not looking forward to receiving. Again, we do it gently. You can’t go all in. But it’s more like a part, maybe a part of ourselves we’ve more recently encountered. So that’s a practice we’ve had in some ways of really seeking to understand more of each other’s stories in ways that we’ve been shaped, in ways that were more vulnerable in some ways, everything, every words to places that we hold the most contempt, the most shame that of course are present with us in the here and now. So,
Dan: Well, again, this is one of the reasons I think we like doing podcasts together. I’m like podcast, oh yeah, I’m going to have to do something. And I don’t feel the burden. It’s more like, well, the kitchen is, I’ve said in other podcast has been a realm of ongoing redemption, but also conflict. So the idea of going out to eat that would not be something that my wife would find delightful. A box of chocolates. I think she would smack them in my head if I purchase something like that. So the typical routines, but she knows how much I’m not fond of Hallmark. I doubt Hallmark will ever be a sponsor of our podcast. But I think having a card that costs like $200 doesn’t cost that much. But that’s what it feels like for me to actually have a card I purchased that really does not ironic, not absurdist, but actually very sincere I think would probably mean as much. And the promise that I will not only make our meal, but clean up every single square inch square as she would prefer, that I think would indeed hold again this disruption of a past, our past, her past. It would stand into the realm of undoing the power of contempt. And at least to some degree, proclaim redemption is actually happening for us kind of late in life, but better, truly better than never.
Rachael: I love that. And I think in some ways this day is an opportunity for us to be disruptive with our kindness. And whether that’s with a spouse, with children, with friends, I think especially with friends, I know you and I have both put words to this. It’s like people think that kindness is given and spoken more than it’s, we think kind things more than we actually act on them. So I think Valentine’s Day, and that’s what you’re putting words to Valentine’s Day, can be an opportunity to act kindness, to enact it in our relationships and in our world. And I love your sense that there are some very simple but deeply meaningful ways you can enact kindness with Becky. And I dunno, it’s a fun opportunity for play.
Dan: Well, and it will require of me to go into our local card shop, which I’ve always viewed as a den of Satan. And I’ll need to repent before I do it because
Rachael: Okay, in all fairness, I could see how you would not be fond of just Valentine’s cards in general, but it’s a very generous act to go into a place where they exist in high number.
Dan: Yes. But it’s universal, meaning our anniversary happened to be the very day they released the new book, which was really a very un-, shall we say, planned gift. And Becky has kept the same anniversary card now for now that we know for sure it’s 48 years. So we’ve got a card that she marks off every year and gives me our anniversary card with the year are marked off. So I will get that anniversary card on that particular day. So the idea again of, well, it’s crazy as this must sound, I think it’s only in the last five minutes, three minutes, it’s also gotten a little clearer why I might not be fond of cards. Wow. Okay. Damn. Well, repentance is really quite a freeing reality. So it’s more than just, I need to repent before I go into the card shop. I need to honor that fourth grader, which would’ve been me at nine, held that day during and after with a lot of shame. And a lot of nobody really wants to give me a card. And so to hold that and to well participate in hallmark, that would be a good movement of grace.
Rachael: I also hope for Jesus to be playful and merciful with you as you give generously.
Dan: Well, and that will show in Jesus’s way as to what cards are available. I mean, what a crazy thing. And I’ve always had this feeling of you never know when you turn a corner, whether Jesus will be there. And that notion that, oh, I’ve rounded a lot of corners in life, but there are corners literally and metaphorically I’ve turned and Jesus has shown up. And that kind of like, well, may you be there, Jesus, when a redemptive Valentine’s Day has a chance to deal with the heartache of a 9-year-old, but also with has to be the thirst and hunger of a mature woman who wants to be celebrated better than I have.
Rachael: That’s right. Yeah, absolutely. So I guess it’s my hope that maybe we’ll all be disrupted by surprising moments of kindness and get to participate and then very intentional moments of kindness.