Random Acts of Kindness

My wife and I were in New York City for a few days of fun and relaxation (fun, anyway - I'm not so sure about the relaxation part). We did quite a bit, from a Broadway show, to a serendipitous rock concert at Rockefeller Center, to Ellis Island, the South Street Seaport, dinner in Little Italy and a late-night comedy club. Not to mention just walking around, which is entertaining in itself.

New Yorkers have a reputation for gruffness, but I ususally see a twinkle in their eyes that betrays a softness beneath the tough exterior. And I've found they can be a lot of fun. On the way home from college I used to come into the city on the train and walk up to the Port Authority to take the bus. Sometimes I'd stop at a lunch counter in the terminal where the waiter wore a white t-shirt, white pants, one of those white paper hats food service workers wear, a bearded stubble and well-earned wrinkles on a sixty-something face.

John Lindsay was mayor at the time. Mayor Lindsay was a handsome, youngish, urbane patrician who didn't fit in with guys like the waiter. Maybe that's why when he delivered your check, he'd loudly announce, "that's thirty-five cents for the cheeseburger, thirty for the fries, ten for the Coke and four cents for Mayor Lindsay, the Great White Father!" I had to laugh every time he belted this out, and he enjoyed the smile.

Lots of nice people are hidden under a veneer. Like the Asian woman who saw us standing at a bus stop holding paper money. In broken English she explained that the bus only took change,
then opened her purse and quickly exchanged our bills for coinage just as the bus arrived.

Or the tall, older black gentleman with flecks of gray in his hair who noticed our confusion in the 42nd Street Subway Station. He'd probably been in this station hundreds of times and seen many confused travelers. He approached us and pleasantly directed us to the Grand Central train.

I had my own opportunity when we needed to get on a subway going the opposite direction from the platform we were on, which meant you had to go down two flights of hot, steamy stairs to go under the tracks and then climb another set of steps up to the correct platform. As we were going down we came upon a small, older woman struggling with a suitcase that was just plain too big for her. She seemed a little shocked when I took it from her, but smiled when she realized I wasn't stealing it. She didn't speak English, but the wave and grin at the top of the stairs said it all.

Were we all Christians? Who knows? But we acted like it. Jesus taught that the second most important command is to love your neighbor as yourself. And in these small ways, that's what we did.

Look at the result: it left each of the recipients grateful for the help and feeling better about his fellow man. It left the givers with the satisfaction of knowing they had done the right thing, a feeling that they made another person's day a little better and - in the case of a Christian - knowledge that they had done God's will.

These episodes illustrate the power and importance of biblical teaching. Loving your neighbor as yourself isn't an abstract concept that's wonderful in theory but difficult to apply in real life. In fact, it's applicable in tons of situations and it creates good will whenever it's practiced.

You have to wonder what the world would be like if everyone practiced the Golden Rule - God's Rule - all the time.


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