Kindness

I just read a little parable about kindness. Here it is, it's really lovely. I hope you take a minute to read it though to most it will probably be familiar.

I also read an article in a Toronto paper about a little experiment they ran. They dropped 20 wallets full of regular wallet stuff in random places in the city. 15 had already been returned by the time they went to press and they had 2 more calls to return to pick up two more. The sociologists said the sample was too small to say anything about the population at large. But it did said something lovely about 17 out of 20 people who returned the wallets intact.

My neighbor cut my grass the other day. He was cutting his so he just kept going.

My boss gave me a short neck rub toward the end of a really stressful day.

Another neighbor can tell you all about the lives of her favorite cab drivers and their families. Because she takes the time to listen.

A wonderful, bright, delightful friend was diagnosed with really nasty cancer. Another friend sent out an email because money was running low. Folks sent checks. I think it totaled a couple thousand dollars-all given freely, without recognition or tax deduction.

My neighborhood backs up to a creek. One of the neighbors is forever organizing a "clean up the creek" day.

I needed some plastic grocery bags-I sent out an email to a bunch of folks on my block. Within 5 minutes there was a knock on my door and bags on my counter.

My wonderful friends from Dallas came to visit me this weekend. Sort of an early birthday party. They fought over who would get to buy my breakfast.

One friend told us all about the cool activities at the camp for children who have survived major burn trauma she's going to again this year, She works year round at a regional burn unit in Dallas. She sees those tragedies every day. Yet this morning, when she talked about those kids she had tears in her eyes.

Today as I was driving down Riverside past where I used to work. I saw the homeless guy who I used to see every day. When I rolled down the window to give him a buck he smiled because he remembered me and asked me how I'd been. He made my day.