Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 17, 1994 TAG: 9401220018
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHLEEN WILSON STAFF WRITER|
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Several motorists who'd maneuvered through the high water jumped out of their cars and in their business suits waded back to help one man's car that had stalled and was flooded.
With the help of three total strangers, his car was pushed to higher ground.
\ Our weary world might appear saturated with compassion fatigue. A deficit of caring. For many, just getting through each day seems an insurmountable feat.
But look closer.
Because beneath life's daily bag of horrors, there's an uprising.
Rebels who face each day armed with benevolence and goodwill, as if plugged into some alternative power source.
The Wizard of Oz called them ``good deed doers.''
They understand the old Irish proverb that it is within the shelter of each other that all people live.
Call it the kindness revolution.
\ Each day, a Lewis-Gale Hospital housekeeper - who spoke virtually no English - tried to throw away the withered dusty blue hydrangea blossoms from a vase on the window in Bill's room.
Wilted or not, they were the only flowers in the room and Bill wanted them to stay.
Each day they argued.
Then one morning he woke to find the vase spilling over with fresh flowers.
Hydrangeas the housekeeper cut from her own yard, long before the sun rose. Placed in the vase quietly while Bill was asleep.
\ ``Practice random acts of kindness and senseless gifts of beauty'' has become almost anthemic in today's society.
It's not a new concept. It is better to give than to receive.
Do unto others ...
Ralph Waldo Emerson believed one of the ``most beautiful compensations of life is that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.''
Even Albert Camus - the existential novelist not necessarily known for viewing the glass as half full - recognized such power, noting that, ``In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me lay an invincible summer.''
What's revolutionary is not that people are reciting such mantras, but they are living them as well.
Those who do are being labeled angels, celestial beings who earn their wings right here on earth.
They've learned to look at the bad with an alternative perception.
\ The employees of the Holiday Inn on Franklin Road threw a car wash and bake sale to raise money to help the flood victims in the midwest.
An hour or so after they started, a man quietly crossed the street, picked up a rag and started scrubbing.
He worked shoulder to shoulder with the crew all day, but wouldn't tell them his name.
``I'm just doing my good deed for the day,'' he said with a smile.
\ Recession, chaos, divorce, poverty, abuse, violence, homelessness, illness, starvation, loneliness, neglect, apathy.
It's out there, all right. And moan about it if you will.
Or you can do something about it.
There are those who lighten the load by taking a risk. Some say they live in the leap.
They stand on the precipice of the unknown and with even the smallest deed make the day better - often for someone they've never met - by sharing their own generousity of spirit.
Ironically, the worse things are, the more dazzling the impact of kindness.
by CNB