Spreading The Kindness

Gratitude is born in hearts that take the time to count up past mercies.


Charles Jefferson

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Hello Everyone

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Sometimes I wish I could round up all the people who have ever done me a kindness and tell them how much their actions mean to me. There are too many of them even to count and many of them I don't remember.



Yesterday was one of those days when kindness and mercy were in the air. It was a simple shopping trip to the supermarket, and yet in almost every step of the way I witnessed gentleness, kindness and consideration of others, from the store clerk who opened the plastic bag I was having trouble with, to the cashier who helped me put the bags in my shopping cart, to the truck driver who waited for me to pass in front of him before he left the parking lot and finally to the neighbor who offered to drive me home and who stuffed all my bags and my shopping cart into her car, drove me to my building and carried some of my parcels including the shopping cart up the stairs. And then she gave me her phone number in case I wanted a lift some other time.



It is very difficult to measure that kind of blessing or to reward it after expressing gratitude, except to return it whenever possible in someone else's life.



Now, as I sit here enjoying my solo Thanksgiving, I am contemplating the lesson learned from yesterday and all the past experiences when I have born witness to kindness, mercy, brotherly and sisterly love unasked for and unexpected expressed towards me and others. The lesson is to look for it, to look for ways to help people no matter how great or small the need.



One afternoon I was standing under an awning in front of a building. It was pouring rain. I was contemplating walking the two blocks to my home or waiting to see if the rain would let up. An Asian woman came out of the building wearing the uniform and carrying the bag of a foreign airline flight attendant. She looked at the rainy street which was full of cars and wondered how to get a cab. She was obviously not used to life in New York. I saw one coming, ran out into the street and stopped it. Then I motioned to her as I held the door open. She ran over and got in with a big smile and a thank you. It was a small thing but it was a chance to practice the law of human rightness, of noticing something you can do for someone and doing it.



Dana Bate

Vagabond Journeys

Never Give Up

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