On Kindness 3

I mentioned to a friend that if he is patient enough with people here in Vancouver as I had to be in the capital city of his native Colombia he would be pleasantly surprised that we all carry hidden treasure.  This is often hard to believe when you have to deal with people in public where, face it, no one is going to be at their best.  The woman shoving her way in front of you on the bus or the transit train might have just been changing bedpans for a patient with terminal cancer.  The cyclist who swore at you when you asked him not to ride his bike on the sidewalk might have just consented to donate one of his kidneys.  The driver flipping you the bird while almost running you over on the crosswalk might be a volunteer in a homeless shelter.  We don`t know what kind of stress any of these people might be under at the time, what kind of problems they have to face every day.  Or, it might be less straightforward.  They could be angels and devils inhabiting the same bodies.  Aren`t we all?

I remember this really horrible Ukrainian woman whose church I attended for a number of years.  I call it her church because for a number of years she was the clergy's housekeeper and she basically ran the place.  She hated me unreservedly and I seemed to represent everything in life that she loathed and feared.  Like many older generation Ukrainian immigrants she was very conservative, not well educated and tended to hate everyone on welfare, everyone who worked with people on welfare and anyone else whose values were remotely liberal or progressive.  I always saw the same surly, miserable scowl on her face without comprehending that I might be somehow bringing out that side to her.  Until just one Sunday at church.  There were a couple of young children there and the ugly hag mask that I knew as her face suddenly melted and all I could see was a fond old woman smiling with every molecule in her body for her unabashed love for children.  Only once I saw that side to her.  No matter how much she infuriated me afterward with her snubs, her hateful remarks and hateful treatment of the many local poor and homeless, and almost everyone else on the face of her flat earth, I would from time to time try to conjure in my memory that brief fleeting moment of that ugly face suddenly made beautiful and radiant with joy by her love for children.

She recently received the highest award of honour from this Anglican diocese for faithful church work and service.  I wonder if they still would have picked her, knowing that she was a bigoted poor-basher.  But likely it was the doting grandmother who got the award, even if I have seen her only once.

I took another early walk this morning on the seawall in Yaletown.  I decided that instead of giving myself time to get annoyed with the people around me that I would say good morning to some of them.  To my surprise, almost everyone responded, some even smiled.

And every last one of them looked surprised.

The sunrise was glorious and I returned home full of joy and all the strength I would be needing to face a new day.