The Kindness of Strangers

When the sorrows of the world become overwhelming, I have come to rely on the kindness of strangers to turn the compass toward hope.

Last week, I was driving to have lunch with a friend when I saw a woman on the street waving her arms to get my attention. A dog was loose in the middle of the road and, from the leash in her hand, I gathered it was hers.

I stopped immediately so as not to frighten the dog and so did two other vehicles coming from the other direction. Slowly the woman caught up with the dog and leashed it then moved to the side of the road so that we could resume our travels. I had tears in my eyes as I thought about how total strangers had stopped patiently while the woman and her dog were reunited.

It was a small thing and yet kindness was evident. Nobody honked their horn or tried to detour around the car in front. And it gave me hope. Here is what Wendell Berry has to say:

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

from “The Peace of Wild Things”

What gives you hope again?