Compassion

My daughter was telling me about a recent conversation that she has with her 8 year old son.

He was talking about wanting to “make the world shine”. He told his mom that he was going to invite a child to play with him that does not have anyone to play with and take a plastic bag on their evening run to pick up trash. He  told his mom that “even people who do bad things have love in their heart, they just need to find it and everyone is perfect even if they only have one eye in the middle of their forehead, or no eyes, or no mouth, or no face at all, they are all perfect”. 

So that tells me a couple of things. First off, his mom has done a pretty good raising him and I know her mother personally - she's no gem.  Second, kids are way more compassionate than adults.  They just have less power to demonstrate their compassion.  It is sad that when we are older and have the resources, we just don't care enough to do anything about anything.  Well, that is true of many people anyway.  I think the world is going to be a better place because of my grandson. If he can just hold on to his desire to be kind, the world will be blessed.

The other day I went for run during my lunch hour.  I've been trying to change my stride a bit so that I don't shuffle so much (I am a huge shuffler).  I was heading back to campus and I was trying to be conscious to the comparison between picking up my feet, which I had been doing, to my current gait, which was shuffling.  And I tripped over a change in the sidewalk. Fell on my knee, my wrist and my shoulder.  But I popped back up because my biggest hurt was that of my pride.  But.....there were two adults also walking down the sidewalk toward me - about 15 feet away.  They clearly saw me because it was a grand fall and a terrific recovery. And did they acknowledge me? Did they ask if I was alright? Anything? No! Nothing. I would be willing to bet that had it been two college-aged students walking down the street, they would have asked immediately.  I've witnessed over and over, the kindness of students on campus.  True, there are many rude, uncaring students but for the most part, they are truly kind humans.  

And what is my role in this? I need to be sure that I am the kind of person I want other people to be.  Which is difficult.  Because sometimes, I'm just not in the mood to be pleasant and caring and kind.  Being aware is the first step and changing my behavior is the next.  To quote a very important person in my life, I want to help make the world shine.