Let me explain.
It all came about because Les and I have subscribed to this Thought Of the Day from Eknath Easwaran, an Eastern Philosopher (that's the easiest way to sum him up). I love to read the thoughts because they are usually about controlling anger and dealing with different hardships in your life- you know stuff I have difficulty with. Well, the one yesterday was about helping out your fellow man when he needed it. Okay, I loved what was said and I thought , "that's nice", not knowing what lay ahead of me in the day.
Grocery shopping, hours later.... I am entering a local store and see a little apricot haired lady standing and waiting patiently, I notice her almost as an afterthought as my mind was blissfully drifting in my own thoughts (Bean was at home with Les and I was all alone to seriously contemplate the unit costs of pickles and the like). I go in the store and do my thing. An hour and a half later, I exit the store and my cart gets caught on a bump in the sidewalk right next to the apricot haired lady! She was still there. But now, she was quietly crying. "OH man" I thought. She looks up into my face and in heavily accented English, asks me if I could help her. I tentatively say "yes....". Then she goes onto explain that a friend of hers had dropped her off and promised to return but has never showed up. I ask how long she has been waiting and she had been there since 2pm (it was 5:20 at this time, so she has been standing out there in the heat all alone for at least 3 hours. I explain that I have a big truck to climb into and I don't really know my way around as I just moved here but that I would help her, she was still game for my assistance. I have to admit on the inside I was highly agitated , I mean it was hot, I KNEW that she wasn't going to be able to walk well and I had already eyeballed the ginormous watermelon in her cart, plus I had company coming over and I thought of all my cold stuff getting hotter and hotter and I had one more store to hit- arggh. But then, I remembered the thought of the day and I remembered how I was raised and I realized that in the long run, it was just better for ME and better for Usci if I took her home.
So I hauled my cart load of stuff down to the Tahoe and I loaded in my groceries and I drove up, put on my hazards and began the loading of Usci. Let me tell you that WAS a big watermelon and it weighed a ton, well more than Usci, I can tell you that, I know because I actually had to life both of them into the truck.
So that's it, that's how my Saturday Grocery Run got entangled with a lost octogenarian Russian and a huge watermelon.
You know what? I enjoyed her company, her driving tips were just downright hilarious and she has promised to pray for me and my whole family every night for a hundred nights.
Thanks Eknath.
This is the thought of the day.....
******
July 30
But they for whom I am the supreme goal, who do all work
renouncing self for me and meditate on me with
single-hearted devotion, these I will swiftly rescue from
death's vast sea, for their consciousness has entered
into me.
-Bhagavad Gita
When the lover of God finds somebody in danger, he
doesn't turn away; he runs to help. This is one of the
unmistakable signs of true love of God.
When someone is in trouble, you don't say, "How
did he behave towards me?" You don't ask,
"Of what race or color is she?" or "Is
this person my countryman? Does she belong to my
religion?" None of these questions can be asked by the
person who truly loves God. He or she just runs to the
rescue of the person in trouble.
When we are trying to help someone, it is we who get great
joy out of it. If we try to rescue someone who has been
unkind, the joy is even greater. This is a secret all but
forgotten in our modern world: we find a much more lasting
joy in rescuing others than in trying to save ourselves,
because in rescuing others we are making sure that we will
be saved by the Lord who is within.
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