Simple Kindness in Everyday Places

So many of the simple kindnesses that we experience daily come off as so common place that we don’t recognize their miraculous nature. Any time we share a quiet moment of reflection with someone we know have walked a similar path or the next time we go for our scheduled walk with a friend or a family member, remember the millions of years of evolution and the tens of thousands of years of civilization that had to take place before such experiences could even be possible. Maybe that way, we’ll see the true magic inside what might be seen as routine.

This morning I was out running my regular few-mile route around my neighborhood as I usually do most days when I came across a couple of beautiful signs of human interaction that have now gratefully been deeply imprinted on my memory although the experiences were very simple and the people I observed probably considered the activities so ordinary. But isn’t that usually the way significant events come? Simple and true and beautiful.

I ran past a couple of distinguished looking gentleman with snow white hair cropped nicely around veteran baseball caps walking toward the Veterans memorial near by home. I go past it so frequently, I was kind of ashamed to say that I normally don’t give it the gravity it really deserves. It’s been so long since a major conflict in the United States where enough of its citizens have been involved for most of us to really understand the horrors of war and the singular courage that so many service people show to their country and to their fellow soldiers.

I can’t fully grasp the magnitude of the sacrifice and willing service that I’m certain the two gentleman I ran by must have made in doing their duty to protect and defend their country. And I know hundreds of thousands more have served faithful since the draft was essentially discontinued. It was a serious reminder for me that I need to show greater respect and honor to those willing to die to protect me, my family, and my community. When we talk about courage today, I’m afraid the term has lost some of it’s original depth. It takes some strength of character to do anything hard whether that be speaking up when we see people being hurt or marginalized or trying to lose a few pounds again or being truly ourselves with our friends and family. But it takes a different kind of courage to face an enemy set on killing us and still be willing to follow the order to advance and rescue fall comrades.

All of that being said, these two men seemed to be there just to reflect and remember together. I would think there must be something exquisitely comforting in knowing that the person you’re walking alongside knows quite a bit about what might have been the hardest times of your life because they experienced them too.

The other remarkably simple but remarkable profound experience was a bit further along my run. Part of my route includes a fabulous pedestrian path that runs some 40 miles along a stream. I see all kinds of configurations of groups on bikes or on foot, in wheelchairs or just quietly sitting next to the stream. But the thing that caught my eye this morning was a couple of young women taking what I could only image is their daily exercise walk with one carry a large Camelbak backpack and the other carrying an infant on her back.

What I realized was that the women carrying the backpack had two water bladders in her backpack so that both women could have water even though the other couldn’t very well carry both a backpack and a baby. It made me think about what a remarkable thing it is that that daily routine could ever be possible. Think about the fact that we’re the only species out of the thousands of known species to be able to coordinate schedules, talk through meet up places and times and even think through such fine details as “I’ll carry the water and you can carry your baby.”

So many of the simple kindnesses that we experience daily come off as being so common place that we don’t recognize their miraculous natures. Any time we share a quiet moment of reflection with a friend or the next time we go for our scheduled walk with a friend or a family member, remember the millions of years of evolution and the tens of thousands of years of civilization that had to take place before such experiences could even be possible. Maybe that way, we’ll see the true magic inside what might be seen as the mundane.