I was at a parish on Saturday morning giving a presentation when an elderly gentleman wandered through the room. He was known to a few people, who engaged him in conversation. It seems that he had arrived that Saturday morning because he remembered that the clocks were changing and thought it would be a good idea to change all the clocks in all the classrooms so the students on Sunday morning would see the correct time in religious education class.
No one asked them to do it. No one assigned him the task. He just took it upon himself because he “wanted the children to concentrate on Jesus and not whether or not the clock was right.”
We spent most of Sunday either ahead or behind. The clocks on all the phones and electronic devices change automatically, but until we thought we were late for church, no one changed the time on the microwave or the oven or the not-so-smart devices.
As we ran around on Sunday, I remembered that man from Saturday morning. I wondered how often we overlook the people in our lives who do things without asking that improve our day, our mood, our lives. The person who holds the door for us. The person who stops so we can turn left in front of them on a busy road. The person who picks up the paper in the hallway without being asked. The person who jogs by your house and throws the newspaper a little closer to the front door. The person who puts extra change of the dish at the cash register so, when we are a few cents short, the change is waiting for us.
Life is messy. The world is complicated. But, once in a while, we experience the anonymous kindness of people around us. This week, I will try to notice the kindness. I will express gratitude for those who make my life a little better with simple, random, acts of generosity.
I was in an airport recently and the cashier was watching people go by, hurriedly and absorbed in their own world. She stood on a stool and yelled to the passing crowd, “Hey people you get what you give. So let me see you smile.“
If she’s right, and I think she is, perhaps this week I will be more intentional about spreading a little kindness myself.