Sign of the times

The news of the world has been pretty grim here folks, in case you haven't noticed. Politicians acting like children, youth acting like apes, fear mongering and hysteria all around. Add that to the general pressures of paying the bills and keeping your head above water and you have a pretty bleak picture.

So I thought I would share....

This morning there was a guy on my bus in a wheel chair who I hadn't ever seen before. Maybe it was a temporary thing... His chair still said "Patient and Guest Services" on it, so maybe it was a "loaner" from one of the local hospitals. When his stop came, he was inexpertly maneuvering himself out of the bus and onto the sidewalk, pulling himself along rather than trying to use his hands to turn the wheels the way people who do this all the time do. The guy was about the age of a Viet Nam vet, but I don't know that he was. Just an older skinny white guy who didn't quite have a handle on his new world. When he got to the sidewalk he was trying to turn the chair around and head toward his destination. A middle aged African American guy happened to be walking by with a woman and he seamlessly and graciously got behind the guy in the chair and since they were going in the same direction pushed him along while smiling and chatting. A total random act of kindness. It totally made my day, I can't imagine what it did for the guy in the chair. I hope he saw it as I did.

A month or two a go my great friend P. was in the local bank, standing in line to cash a check. The lady in front of her was asking about the balance in her checking account. The checking account had about $68, and the woman needed $65, but the teller said she had to leave at least $5 in the account to keep it open. So she withdrew the $63 and another $2 from her savings account which was running on the order of $25. P. went home and called the bank and convinced the teller to allow her to transfer $200 into the woman's bank account anonymously. P isn't flush with cash, but she is overflowing with compassion.

Just thought I would share those two small snippets and that they infuse some hope and joy into your life. We need all we can get right now.