I
live high in the hills and my body is getting old. One day I was out in my garden fussing with weeds and grew tired. I decided to lie back on the grass and rest like I used to when I was a small boy.
I woke up some minutes later with a neighbor I had never met leaning over me, all out of breath, asking me if I were okay. He had looked out his window two blocks up the hill and saw me lying on my back on the grass, look ing, I am sure, like the victim of a stroke or heart attack, and had run all the way down the hill to check on me.
It was embarrassing, but it was also so wonderfully touching. After we had it all sorted out, he let out a deep breath and lay down on the grass beside me. We both stayed there very quietly for a while and then he said, “Thank you for deciding to take your nap out on the lawn where I could see you and come here. The sky is such a beautiful thing, and I cannot remember the last time I really looked at it.”
- Random Acts of Kindness
In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you...
- Leo Tolstoy