|
Today's
Meditation:
I
was a bit disappointed a few years ago when the books about
"Random Acts of Kindness" came out. If you
didn't see them, they were full of stories about people's
acts of kindness to others, all nicely documented for the
rest of us to read.
I
was disappointed because writing them down seemed to
diminish them. They no longer were
"unremembered," and they had lost their purity, so
to speak, by now being in written form for others to read
and judge. If I do a nice act today, I don't want to
remember it for the rest of my life-- I want to move on
tomorrow to do a completely new and different kind act
tomorrow, or even later today. Once I start keeping
track of them, then they lose their true purpose-- sharing
kindness with others.
The
best portion of our lives can be these nameless acts of
kindness and love. We can fill each day with such
acts, and it takes very little effort, when all is said and
done. I can drop a piece of someone's favorite candy
onto his desk without him knowing where it came from, or I
can do a little chore for someone else before she even knows
she needs to do it. I can give a flower to a stranger,
or I can throw someone's newspaper closer to their front
door when I'm taking a walk in the morning. I can give
someone the forty-five cents that they're short in the
supermarket, and I can pay the toll for the car behind me if
I want to.
Acts
of kindness and love don't have to be expensive, and they
don't have to be flashy. They just have to come from
our hearts, and if we can build the better portion of each
day on such acts, then definitely the better portion of our
lives will have been spent performing acts of kindness and
love.
|
