This is a reprint from my website blog today. Enjoy…
Hello everyone. Today I’d like to share something that happened last week. The reason for sharing is because when I told my partner the story, a few days after it happened, his eyes teared up and he said “That’s so beautiful! Thank you for telling me!” So, here goes.
I was heading into a grocery store that I’ve gone to many times. It is an Aldi, and it’s right in town.
It was sunny and windy that day. As I approached the store, I noticed a man sitting on the sidewalk and leaning against the wall of the building, just in front of the carts. You have to put a quarter in the cart in order to get one, so everyone stops there first.
I looked down at him and said “Are you okay?” I’m not sure why I said that, I don’t usually blurt things out to people. I had never encountered anyone looking for money outside that store, and his presence surprised me.
He looked up at me, and with piercing blue eyes spent the next ten minutes or so explaining his recent hard luck, as well as the sudden loss of his son Jesse. He was in tears at several points, as was I.
While we talked, several people reached in and put some cash in his hands. As I walked into the store, I told him I’d check on him after I shopped. I was planning on giving him the change from my purchases. Another man walked up to him, pulled out his wallet and said, rather loudly, “Down on your luck? I didn’t do well at the casino today, but I’ll share what I got.”
When I came out of the store, he was talking to other shoppers. I reached down to hand him some money and he yelled “Your cart!” It had started rolling into the parking lot right towards a parked car. A young woman left her cart and ran to grab mine. I thanked her and then turned to give him the money.
There were three other people gathered around him, and one of them was holding a box full of groceries. As she fumbled with her stuff, her receipt dropped and blew away. I ran to get it. As I handed it to her, she said “Thank you for giving him money, that was very cool.”
When I returned with my now emptied shopping cart, there were still people smiling and chatting around him. He was smiling and saying “God bless you” to every one of them. I thanked him for saving my cart, and left.
I thought about the whole scenario for a few days before I could talk about it. I wasn’t sure what it was I had been a part of, but I knew that it was something special. It almost felt sacred, and I wasn’t sure that talking about it wouldn’t ruin the feeling. It didn’t.
The thing is, Aldi is a store that is not fancy, doesn’t carry commercially advertised products and is more affordable than the bigger stores. I’ve always shopped there. The people almost never look each other in the eyes. Lately, everyone has been looking sort of desperate.
What happened that day may have been because of him or an alignment of the stars, I don’t know. But for a few moments that afternoon, I experienced a group of strangers who were informally joined together with no judgments or misgivings; just people being human. We helped each other, heard each other, and looked each other in the eyes. It was, I think, what Clif High refers to as a SOC (Self-Organizing collective). It felt wonderful.
I left the store with so much more than groceries. I left with a full heart and renewed faith in humanity. We are pretty cool. Our man on the sidewalk may have been an angel, for what I witnessed was miraculous. I think we’re going to be just fine.
With so much love,
Sophia
~
Words of One, Drops of Light, (and all of my books) are available on Amazon. “A Re-Imagination”, which lays down ideas for structuring our new earth, is also available now at both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It’s also on Audible. The Words of One series offers insight into what happened, and why it did, throughout 2020–2021. (click here)
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