“I led them with cords of human kindness,
with bands of love.
I was to them like those
who lift infants to their cheeks.
I bent down to them and fed them.”
~Hosea 11:4
A friend wrote on Facebook about an experience she had this week. She was in the drive through at Starbucks and ordered her morning jolt of caffeine. When she stared to pay, the cashier told her that her coffee had been paid for by the person who had been in front of her in line. She then paid for the person behind her, hoping to start a chain reaction of kindness.
I’ve held this simple act in my consciousness all week. Driving through at Starbuck’s competition yesterday I kept looking in my rear view mirror hoping a car would follow me so I could try this act of paying it forward. I must have been there at on off time. So my chance will have to wait. Running errands with my sons yesterday we talked about what a great and simple idea this is and how surprised and special the benefactors must feel. The question became: why don’t we do things like this more often?
Kindness has a way, I believe, of not only altering our experience, but also providing the opportunity for our way of walking in the world to change. Who knows what might have been happening in the person’s morning when they received the gift of free coffee from a stranger? Who knows how that simple act may have changed their whole outlook on the day, on their life? A simple yet profound act.
Perhaps I am thinking about this even more right now because this morning I had the opposite experience. Taking my packages to be mailed to family around the country, I was greeted with a less than cordial manner by the postal worker. Now I will be the first to admit that their work this time of year must be horrific. And for that I am working hard to muster compassion. But the words and manner of this person’ s actions toward me are still ringing in my body and I am aware of how one person’s actions carries such power.
It seems to me we have a choice with the rising of each new day. Walk the world in kindness or battle our way through with the first words that come to mind, without thought of how those words may affect another. In these remaining days of Advent, as I continue to live into the theme ‘In days to come….great joy’, I pray I can choose the former. It seems the best choice not only for all those I will encounter but for myself and for the world. Walking the world in kindness seems to be the path to great joy.
Sometime during the next week I hope to pay it forward with a cup of coffee for someone. It will be an anonymous gift of something fleeting. But it will also plant in the cells of both giver and receiver a bent toward kindness. A kindness that might counteract whatever experiences either of us might have had or are yet to have.
It seems like as good a goal as any for the walk toward Christmas.
Have a blessed weekend……………….