Lately, I’ve been cleaning out my office. After combing through a quarter-century of published articles and studies, I was ready to toss it all out and forget about saving what I’d deemed essential. So glad I didn’t and here’s why.
On my routine bus ride, while musing on what would be my theme for this week’s article. I came up with a vague outline: Making a difference by a simple act of kindness. I tucked that back in my mind as I returned to sorting “stuff”. That’s when I came across a special assignment paper, I’d written for a writing course I took many years ago. The title? “How one Christian writer can change the world.” Now that’s one comprehensive topic!
Scanning through, I noted the specific impact individual writers have had on my life and my work. The beauty of disciplines was one; the exposure and taunting of my prejudices, another; and, “breathing thoughts of God into my spirit” yet another. I admit I was taken aback by my observations but then returned to my bus-thought.
The next morning, an international student got on the bus with a transfer in hand. The driver politely informed her that it wasn’t valid. She looked stunned. That’s when a fellow passenger got up and paid her fare. Her gratitude was immediate.
Then later that day I was the recipient of an act of kindness. Waiting in the doctor’s office for a procedure, I heard that he was running late. With one patient ahead of me, booked for a 30-minute appointment, I said, “Oh, no. It will be dark then and I don’t drive in the dark.” Without hesitation, the lady offered to trade appointments with me.
No sermon speaks so loudly as individual and daily acts of kindness; What can I/you do to change our world?
