Mass mercy

Immersed as we are in saturation coverage of the massacre in Virginia, I wanted to pass along some good news.

For the past week, at least, I have been the beneficiary of random acts of kindness from so many people, some strangers and some friends.

Here’s one…in the process of helping a family member in another state advance through some bureaucratic red tape, I called a state office and asked for paperwork and a bit of help going through it. The woman who answered the first two times I needed to call gave a standard response, but said she couldn’t do more. But I called the next day for one followup question, and a different staffer answered the phone. This woman listened – actually listened – and told me she’d be glad to help. When I needed more, she got even more helpful. “You just let me know whatever you need, and I’ll do my best to get it done.” She did, and it made all the difference. I sent her boss a letter praising her kindness and efficiency.

I met some very kind people on the plane to Washington. We conversed the whole trip. They were going to the same place I was staying, though for different conferences. They insisted I share their ride, and then wouldn’t take reimbursement. They were just….nice. 

Trying to help my father in Massachusetts, I’ve need to call on a host of people in the professional and just neighborly realm. One after another have stepped up and answered our needs, and I’m keenly aware of the ones who even went beyond what I asked. They anticipated a need, and suggested it themselves. Small deeds, in and of themselves, are gems. Added up, they’re invaluable.

My mother is covering her ‘brood’ in more intensive prayer these days, as ‘stuff’ happens and people suffer. I had to smile at the litany of saints she said she appealed to on our behalf, much the way we go to our friends and ask them to pray for us. I told her I think God hears the prayer of mothers in a special way.

Speaking of asking people to pray, a good friend sent out a desperate email today asking for everyone to remember an amazing young woman of only 20, who kept the news of her cancer from her family because she was afraid that chemotherapy would seriously threaten her unborn child. This young mother only prays to live long enough for her child to be born. I’ve been praying for her since reading that.

My sisters are doing amazing things for friends and family, especially as their small town suffers the pain of a tragic car accident that took the life of a precious little girl who played with my niece’s daughter. How these little children are handling this terrible and frightening loss is poignant. How my sister is trying to help them through it is heroic….like my other sister who frequently sends inspiring e-cards with messages specific to each person’s needs.

Oh…there’s more. I could list my whole family, because they’re all doing amazing things.

And friends. Today alone, I had to call on three separate good friends to somehow answer an urgent need in the midst of their busy schedule–probably crushingly busy–and they each…each…generously said yes, ‘whatever you need.’ I’m so humbly grateful to each one. What grace.

And the strangers at the post office, in its final hour on tax deadline day (I cringe to admit this publicly, but that’s what a crunch this year has been around here!). When I got to the counter, everything went wrong at my clerk’s station. The tape ran out on one printer, then the tape ran out on the receipt machine, while the line behind me grew longer and longer. Then, when we were nearing the end of a painfully long process….the computer froze. She had to re-boot. It lost everything, and we had to start over. It was excruciating. I wouldn’t evern turn around and look at the line once, because I was sure those people were angry and probably at me.

“Don’t worry about it,” the clerk said, “it’s not your fault and besides, neither of us can do anything about it anyway. We just have to wait it out.” Did I mention that there were only two clerks…and I was tying up one of them? (okay, the glitches were tying us all up) But after it was all (mercifully) over, I turned and wanted to slip away. But no….they had locked the door. And so people in line had to direct me to the back door they left open for us last-minute folks. And they were nice….friendly….kind. They smiled. I smiled.

We’re all in this together.

In the grand scheme of things right now, this all seems so small, as the TV churns out agonizing stories from the Virginia Tech campus. But such incidents of charity, of mercy when mere ‘time management’ is sufficient, have the power to transform the culture. Especially when we ‘pay it forward’.

Pass it on.