The other refugee from the cold was a tall elderly gentleman who seemed comfortable with his surroundings. He was in absolutely no hurry to step back through the
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front door and risk sailing through town at the mercy of the wind and ice-covered sidewalks. I couldn't help but think that the gentleman had lost his mind or his way. To be out on such a day, shuffling through the merchandise of a 7-Eleven, the man must be completely daft.
I didn't have time to be concerned with an old man who had taken leave of his senses. I needed a battery, and there were a couple hundred important people who had things left to do with their lives waiting for me back at the convention center. We had a purpose.
The old man somehow found his way to the counter ahead of me. Roberta smiled. He said not a single word. Roberta picked up each of his meager purchases and entered each amount into the cash register. The old man had dragged himself into the Denver morning for a lousy muffin and a banana. What a sorry mistake that was!
For a muffin and a banana, a sane man could wait until spring and then perhaps enjoy the opportunity to saunter the streets when they had returned to reasonableness. Not this guy. He had sailed his old carcass into the morning as if there were no tomorrow.
Perhaps there would be no tomorrow. After all, he was pretty old.
When Roberta had figured the total, a tired, old hand fished deep into the trench coat pocket. "Come on," I thought, "You may have all day, but I have things to do!"
The fishing hand caught a change purse as old as the man himself. A few coins and a wrinkled dollar bill fell onto the counter. Roberta treated them as though she were about to receive a treasure.
When the meager purchases had been placed into a plastic bag, something remarkable happened. Although not a word had been spoken by her elderly friend, an old, tired hand slowly extended over the counter. The hand trembled, then steadied.
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Roberta spread the plastic handles on the bag and gently slipped them over his wrist. The fingers that dangled into space were gnarled and spotted with the marks of age.
Roberta smiled larger.
She scooped up the other tired, old hand and in an instant, she was holding them both, gathered in front of her brown face.
She warmed them. Top and bottom. Then sides.
She reached and pulled the scarf that had flown nearly off his broad but stooped shoulders. She pulled it close around his neck. Still he said not a single word. He stood as if to cement the moment in his memory. It would have to last at least until the morrow, when he would once again shuffle through the cold.
Roberta buttoned a button that had eluded the manipulation of the old hands.
She looked him in the eye and, with a slender finger, mockingly scolded him.
"Now, Mr. Johnson. I want you to be very careful." She then paused ever so slightly for emphasis and added sincerely, "I need to see you in here tomorrow."
With those last words ringing in his ears, the old man had his orders. He hesitated, then turned, and one tired foot shuffling barely in front of the other, he moved slowly into the bitter Denver morning.
I realized then that he had not come in search of a banana and a muffin. He came in to get warm. In his heart.
I said, "Wow, Roberta! That was really some customer service. Was that your uncle or a neighbor or someone special?"
She was almost offended that I thought that she only gave such wonderful service to special people. To Roberta, apparently, everyone is special.
Scott Gross
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An Act of Kindness
You must give time to your fellow meneven if it's a little thing, do something for otherssomething for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it.
Albert Schweitzer
President Abraham Lincoln often visited hospitals to talk with wounded soldiers during the Civil War. Once, doctors pointed out a young soldier who was near death and Lincoln went over to his bedside.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" asked the President.
The soldier obviously didn't recognize Lincoln, and with some effort he was able to whisper, "Would you please write a letter to my mother?"
A pen and paper were provided and the President carefully began writing down what the young man was able to say:
"My dearest mother, I was badly hurt while doing my duty. I'm afraid I'm not going to recover. Don't grieve too much for me, please. Kiss Mary and John for me. May God bless you and father."
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The soldier was too weak to continue, so Lincoln signed the letter for him and added, "Written for your son by Abraham Lincoln."
The young man asked to see the note and was astonished when he discovered who had written it. "Are you really the President?" he asked.
"Yes, I am," Lincoln replied quietly. Then he asked if there was anything else he could do.
"Would you please hold my hand?" the soldier asked. "It will help to see me through to the end."
In the hushed room, the tall gaunt President took the boy's hand in his and spoke warm words of encouragement until death came.
The Best of Bits & Pieces
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Two Families
One family, which had emigrated from Japan and settled at the turn of the century near San Francisco, had established a business in which they grew roses and trucked them into San Francisco three mornings a week.
The other family was a naturalized family from Switzerland who also marketed roses, and both families became modestly successful, as their roses were known in the markets of San Francisco for their long vase-life.
For almost four decades the two families were neighbors, and the sons took over the farms, but then on December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Although the rest of the family members were Americans, the father of the Japanese family had never been naturalized. In the turmoil and the questions about internment camps, his neighbor made it clear that, if necessary, he would look after his friend's nursery. It was something each family had learned in church: Love thy neighbor as thyself. "You would do the same for us," he told his Japanese friend.
It was not long before the Japanese family was transported to a barren landscape in Granada, Colorado. The relocation center consisted of tar-paper-roofed barracks
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surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards.
A full year went by. Then two. Then three. While the Japanese neighbors were in internment, their friends worked in the greenhouses, the children before school and on Saturdays; and the father's work often stretched to 16 and 17 hours a day. And then one day, when the war in Europe had ended, the Japanese family packed up and boarded a train. They were going home.
What would they find? The family was met at the train depot by their neighbors, and when they got to their home, the whole Japanese family stared. There was the nursery, intact, scrubbed and shining in the sunlightneat, prosperous and healthy.
So was the balance in the bank passbook handed to the Japanese father. And the house was just as clean and welcoming as the nursery.
And there on the dining room table was one perfect red rosebud, just waiting to unfoldthe gift of one neighbor to another.
John Sherrill
Submitted by Carol Broadbent
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Guests in the Night
Love cures peopleboth the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.
Dr. Karl Menninger
It was a family adventure trip. My wife, Judith, our two year-old daughter, Leila, and I had rented a small camper and were traveling through Baja California. The day before our return to San Diego, we parked the camper near a beach for one last night in nature.
In the middle of the night I was awakened by Judith poking me with her elbow and yelling at me to get up. My first impressions were of noise and banging. Fairly disoriented, I jumped down out of our little loft-bed, and standing stark naked, faced the windshield.
What I
saw woke me quickly out of my half-dazed state. The van was surrounded by masked men banging on the windows.
Having watched a lot of adventure movies, I always wondered what I would feel and do when confronted with danger. Well, I leapt right into the hero's role. I felt no feartime to "save the family."
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I dove for the driver's seat and turned the ignition. The camper had started perfectly at least 50 times that trip. Now it tried to turn over, sputtered a few times, and died. There was the sound of breaking glass, and a hand reached in through the driver's side window. I smashed the hand. (Non-violently of course! Actually, my lifelong inquiries about pacifism didn't stand a chance in the energy of the moment. I've often thought that I'm glad I didn't have a gun because I probably would have used it.)
My hand was bleeding from the broken glass. I figured I had one more chance to start the car. Having played hero successfully a thousand times in fantasy, I never doubted I would do it. I turned the key. The engine sputtered to life . . . and died. Then someone jammed a rifle into my throat. I remember this thought: "You mean I don't save the family?" I was really quite surprised.
One of the bandits, who spoke a little English, was yelling, "Money! Money!" The rifle still at my throat, I reached under the driver's seat and handed one of them my wallet through the broken window. I was hoping this was the end of it.
It wasn't.
Releasing the latch through the broken window, they opened the door. The man with the rifle pushed me hard and sent me sprawling onto the floor. They entered the camper.
They looked remarkably like Mexican bandits from a grade-B movie. They had standard-issue bandannas over their faces. There were four: the one with the rifle, one with a rusty carving knife, one with a huge machete and one unarmed. I was half surprised they weren't wearing bullet-filled bandoleers slung over the shoulders. Maybe their weapons were really props from Central Casting.
While one man held me to the floor with the rifle against my neck, the bandits started tearing the camper apart, yelling in Spanish.
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It's interesting. While I could do something (or at least had the illusion of being able to do something) like start the car or save the family, I felt no fear, although there was adrenaline to spare. But as I lay naked on the floor, cold steel against my neck, I started feeling quite helpless. Then I felt afraid. I began to shake.
Now this was an interesting situation. I was just about to get pretty in tune with my fear; in fact, I was only a moment or two from losing it. In a fleeting shred of self consciousness, I reminded myself that this might be an excellent time to meditate and seek guidance. I remember breathing into my heart and asking God for help.
I heard quite clearly this passage from the 23rd Psalm: "Thou shalt preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies."
These words were met inside with a resounding, "Huh? . . . I don't get it!"
Then I saw an image of myself, serving the bandits a feast. I thought to myself, "I'm living in a reality where bandits have attacked me, I'm resisting, and it's a generally bad scene.
"Well, what if this wasn't so? What if they weren't bandits? What if they were old friends of ours, come to visit us out of the cold desert night? What if I were glad to see them, and welcomed them as I would honored guests? What if I prepared a table for them?"
While one aspect of me was busy fantasizing horrendous scenes of rape and murder, a clear, quiet space opened inside that was intrigued by this new possibility. These too are children of God. How many times have I declared that my purpose is to serve others? Well, here they are!
I looked at the bandits from this more heartfelt awareness. "Wait a minute! These aren't bandits! They're kids!"
It was suddenly apparent that these "bandits" were
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quite young, obviously inexperienced and rather inept. They also seemed nervous. Their violence and yelling seemed more a product of their fear than their power. Also, in their thrashing about, they were making a terrific mess of things and losing a lot of the good loot. In a rather bizarre flash of insight, I saw that ''serving a table" in this moment meant to help them do a better job of robbing us.
I turned to the young man who spoke English and said, "Hey, you're missing some of the best stuff! Under that pile over there is a very nice camera."
He gave me a peculiar look.
He yelled something in Spanish to one of the other young men, who found the camera buried where I had pointed. "Thirty-five millimeter . . . takes great pictures!" I offered helpfully.
I spoke to the English-speaking man again. "Your friends are making such a mess, you're going to miss things. I'd be happy to show you where all the good stuff is."
He looked at me strangely again. My responses were clearly not matching his script for bandits and victims. As I pointed out other items and their hiding places, his suspicion gave way. I offered to get things for him and his friends.
The next thing we knew, it was show and tell. "Nice guitar!" I demonstrated a few chords. "Who plays? Here, do you want it? . . . Sony Walkman, headsets, batteries, some tapes! Who wants it?" I thought about the Native American giveaway of the giveaway. I realized that given our respective access to money, it seemed right somehow that they should receive our goods, a kind of balancing of wealth. I began to enjoy the feeling of gifting them. I tried to think which of our possessions they would most enjoy.
Although my out-of-role behavior was clearly having some impact on the scene, it was not yet a total transformation. The young man with the carving knife
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seemed particularly erratic, perhaps drug-intoxicated. Every few minutes he pushed me or yelled at me. His English vocabulary seemed to consist of: "Drugs! Booze! More money!" He found a bottle of Lomotil (for diarrhea) in a kitchen drawer. I tried to convince him that he didn't want the pills, though when he became violent about it, I must confess the thought, "It serves you right" crossed my mind.
My English-speaking "friend" increasingly began to play a calming role with the others.
Well, I'd given away everything I could think of. I looked toward the back of the van where Judith and Leila were huddled, wrapped in a blanket. Judith, of course, was having her own inner adventure, managing her fears of rape for herself and kidnapping of our child. Leila, who in her whole two years of life had never encountered someone who wasn't "good," kept interjecting things like, "Daddy, who dese nice men?"
I thought to myself, "What's next?" Then I found myself spontaneously asking, "Would you like something to eat?" The English-speaking young man translated. Four pairs of incredulous eyes looked at me as I proceeded to open the refrigerator. Now we had a cultural problem. As I surveyed the shelves of tofu, sprouts, yogurt and nut butters, I had that sinking feeling like when you're hosting a dinner party and someone shows up on a special diet. It was obvious that we had nothing recognizable as food. Then I saw a nice red Delicious apple. "Okay, that's normal food." I took out the apple and held it out toward the man with the machete. This felt like an important moment. In most cultures, the sharing of food is a kind of communion, an acknowledgment of friendship, or declaration of peace. As I continued to hold out the apple toward him, I sensed him struggling for a moment, in his own way letting go of the roles in which we had met. For
A 3rd Serving of Chicken Soup for the Soul Page 7
