How do you feel inside when all around you is frozen?
The smallest gesture can have the most profound and unexpected impact. The smallest gesture can melt the ice.
Every year as the festive mania heats up, I revisit a 2010 post by dearly departed and eternally mysterious blogger The HRD, entitled You’ve been shopped. It’s a simple message. But it bears repeating. Be good to retail workers. Not just now but all the year round. The HRD writes:
“So in the run up to the festive season, as you spend your hard earned money also spend some time to think about these guys who don’t want to be there, but have to be. Remember that that kid struggling with the till, or looking aimlessly into space WHEN YOU NEED SOME HELP RIGHT NOW is just doing their best in shitty conditions for shitty pay. Share a bit of love their way, not only will you make their day better, you’ll also improve your own."
Amen.
Each year, my friend Kate Griffiths-Lambeth curates an advent series of guest blog posts. Yesterday (Friday 15 December 2017), Kate shared some beautiful, simple and direct words from an anonymous soul, for whom the end of 2017 cannot come fast enough. For this unnamed writer, the year’s events "create[d] the perfect storm and the storm rained darkness.” Talking first to the Samaritans and then to their doctor helped them. A sympathetic ear put them on the path back towards the light:
“[Y]ou spend time with a person who listens. Another crack of light. They don’t just listen though. They empathise."
I pray that this soul’s spirits and ability to cope continue to improve. "It feels better and gets better week by week,” they write. If they should read these words, I am here to help if I can.
Buddha seems not too awfully fussed by the snow situation in my front garden. The picture at the top of this post was taken earlier this week (on Monday 11 December 2017). My friend Gurprriet Siingh commented on Instagram that “Buddha’s all about equanimity."
That we could all feel as Buddha does when all around us is frozen. Not all of us feel that equanimity. I certainly don’t. But the smallest gesture can melt the ice.
MJCarty 