Simple Gestures

Can / should we create a better world? I don’t know. To me, this question seems more to confine the space, rather than widen it. But if we follow what really touches and nourishes our hearts, with the light ease and the smile which are natural to the heart, then we allow for movement and the emergence of what our two patron saints are heralding – something new that we don’t yet know, but which we can still entrust ourselves to. What really counts to us, and moves us, therefore really has nothing to do at all with commandments and morals.

I can recall an example – and each of us here has experienced such examples – of a tire installer in the USA who, after we’d been waiting for hours on a lonely highway, eventually appeared out of the night with his tiny service vehicle in order to fix the flat tire on our RV: extremely focused and so alert, as though he had just discovered a surprisingly new variation in the work which he had already done a thousand times before; and above all: he worked with complete enjoyment, and laughed the whole time.

So, it’s not about heroic altruism or something similar; no, it’s about simple gestures of interest, of concern, sympathy and patience there where we are at the moment – whether that place is one of the current crisis areas of the world or where we are now, in a region where peace currently prevails.

[Seeds for Reflection] What are other examples of “simple gestures” that evoke what is natural within each of us and suggests our capacity to cooperate together? Please add your thoughts and comments below:

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