Important Instances of Goodness Shared
The other day I was reading the wonderful poem by Pastor
Keith Spencer
“Would we trade a memory, for uncertainty?” published in the
Living Lutheran pages on September 24,
2013 (http://www.livinglutheran.com/blog/2013/09/would-we-trade-a-memory-for-uncertainty.html)
The first line is, “Once fall meant” and then Keith
continued his poem with memories that flooded my mind and my heart. I felt both comforted and reflective as
the poetry continued. Pastor Keith
and I were sharing our joy at what we noticed and remembered. Poets do that with regularity.
It was an important instance of goodness shared.
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The other day I noticed the breeze on the golden yellow
leaves on the trees a few feet away -- an exhilarating feeling of beauty and
satisfaction came over me. I then turned to my wife sitting next to me and
said, "Look at that beautiful golden-leaved tree with the breeze rustling
through its branches. It is a wonderful sight." She looked and turned back
to me and said, "Thank you. It's beautiful." Then she went on to
comment on how that reminded her of some music of fall she heard earlier today
that made her happy. "Autumn Leaves?" I asked. "No, it was
classical", she said.
My deliberate step to notice, to share and to listen, and
hers then to reciprocate with a thanks and an extension took both of us into a
whole new realm of "shared happiness".
It was an important instance of goodness shared.
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“This video will change your
life. I have no words left” are the
opening words on the facebook posted video made to identify how good deeds are
transmitted.
The video shows a series of
people doing good deeds” (catching some boxes so they don’t fall on a person;
holding a person engrossed in a book back from crossing the street in front of
a car; stopping to help a stranger
reach a package that was too high for them to reach) and in each video scenario
the camera pans to a third person who happens to be watching the “good deed”,
and who later on does a good deed of some sort for yet a third person. These video-makers and I were in a
sense sharing our admiration of the potential for people to make the world a
better place. Film-makers and
authors do this with regularity.
It is an important instance of
goodness shared.
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My wife and I were sitting in the sanctuary one evening
last month with about 125 other members of our congregation. We were
listening to an engaging speaker talk about her remarkable and hope-filled
ongoing struggle with stage 4 cancer. Because my wife and I have
both grappled with cancer ourselves recently, we waited with great anticipation
for what the speaker had to share with us. Our expectations for a
helpful/hopeful message were exceeded, but my story is about something that
happened in the audience as the speaker started telling us of her journey.
As the speaker began her talk,
I noticed a couple we have known as friends and colleagues for 40 years stand
up and move over two seats and sit down right next to an older member of our
church who was sitting alone. The wife put her arm around this
person for a bit, and the husband acknowledged their move with a smile, a nod
and a small wave of his hand. Perhaps I just imagined it, but I
thought I could see a sense of relief or calm spread across the face of the
person who had been sitting alone.
Since all of this took about
five seconds, I was glad that I was sitting close enough behind them to see this
spontaneous act of kindness and its positive outcome.
Later in the program, during
the comments and questions between the audience and the speaker, I mentioned
publicly what I had noticed, and associated that deed with the sort of kindness
and friendship that the speaker identified as being so helpful to her during
her years of struggle with cancer.
At the conclusion of the
program and as we were leaving the sanctuary, a couple of people thanked me for
bringing up what I had noticed. They had themselves not noticed that
“move”, yet, they said, my pointing out this act of kindness gave them a
special positive feeling for the sort of thoughtful and caring congregation we
have in our church. It made us all feel better as we shared in the
noticing of something very good about “this place”.
It was an important instance of goodness
shared.
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Isn’t this what happens in the best of sermons?
The Gospel. What
the preacher says is an important instances of goodness shared.
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