How often do we talk about the virtue of tenderness?

Tenderness is a deeper and more difficult virtue because it cannot be feigned. You can get close to it, but you’ll always know. Kindness, positive “vibes” can all be feigned, impersonated to become something base, manipulative.

But we know in the deepest part of our bones when we have been a recipient of tenderness. I know I have and it’s always been a shock to my heart but also an experience of a warmth and safety unlike any other- a basic human longing.

Tenderness is a gift, a fruit reaped from habit. That means that it can never be truly self-serving. It’s a virtue for restoring another, healing, or something else that builds up a person as opposed to tearing them down.

Above all, it is not a weakness. It cannot be because the challenge is too great. Are we able to rise to the challenge of growing in tenderness with one another?

In the words of George Eliot, “When death comes it is never our tenderness that we repent from, but our severity.”

Try. There is only to gain.