“Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.”
~Thich Nhat Hanh

This past week I have had several reminders of how important it is to walk gently upon the Earth. Mostly I have had reminders about how important it is to speak gently and handle those I meet with tender care. The fact of the matter is that most of us get up every morning and head out into the world with little thought of those we might meet along the way. Speaking for myself, I know I have so many things on my own agenda that I rarely give a thought to the many things all the human beings I come into contact with may be carrying. It is a sad yet true statement.

But at least twice in the past several days I have been reminded that each of us wake up, plant our two feet on the ground if we are lucky, get dressed, brush our teeth and proceed out the door with our invisible bags jammed full of all that has happened to us. Yesterday. Last year. When we were children. In that last relationship. Before our kids were born. At the doctor’s office. When we were five years old, on the playground. No one else can see the wounds or the medals we wear from these past experiences. But they are there.

I was reminded this week that many people walk out into what will become their day with wounds that have never healed, never even been offered an antibiotic ointment or colorful band aid. They may be sitting on the bus or in traffic next to us, listening to music or talk radio, trying to just get through the next few minutes. Tears may be just below the surface or packed so deep in a well that if the water began to flow, it would create a flood of biblical proportions. Their fears might be riding on the surface of their dry, chapped skin or buried in the pit of a stomach that never stops churning.

The point is, we just don’t know. Right now the young man who sits across from me in a coffee shop, his black stocking cap pulled down over his ears, his puffy coat zipped tightly around his neck, could be carrying pain I would find unimaginable. The older gentleman I often see dressed in white painter’s pants grabbing a cup of coffee before he begins his work day may be suffering in ways that are certainly invisible. I just don’t know.

Of course at some level we do know because each of us have also made our way into a day, a week, a year, when sorrow or pain or sadness too deep for words has been the cape we wore. We have wondered how no one seemed to be able to see. We hoped that no one would bump into us with an bony elbow or a sharp word that would cause the carefully constructed armor we had tied on to break and fall to the ground, exposing all the frayed nerves of our weary, wounded soul.

I don’t know which side of this equation you are on right now. I do know that I am deeply grateful for the experiences that have humbled me and reminded me to be careful, very careful with my words and how I speak them. The gift of living this life, a life connected to all the many people we meet every day, demands that we handle one another with care, tender, tender care. Because we just don’t know what they have packed in their bags.

And so my promise to myself and to those that walk this path with me is that I will hope to walk gently, speak kindly and keep my heart open to all I cannot know. About that person. And that person. And that person.

So many people. So many unknown stories.