The Art of Blessing: Part 3

When I first moved to San Francisco in 1973, I shared a flat on Shrader Street with a roommate named Andy. Andy introduced me to Kevin, somebody he had met who lived a couple of doors down in our apartment building. 

 

One day, there was a knock on my door and when I answered it, Kevin was there. He looked somewhat agitated and told me that he was having a bad acid trip (this was 1973 in San Francisco) and asked if Andy and I could help him. Andy wasn’t home and here I was, a 22-year old who knew little of the world. But I agreed to come into his apartment, made him a warm glass of milk with honey, sat next to him and held his hand and read to him from the book The Wind in the Willows. He calmed down and we passed a nice hour together until another friend came over. 

 

I moved out of that apartment some months later and never saw Kevin again. But I wonder if he’s somewhere reading the Wind in the Willows to his grandchildren and telling them about a nice neighbor who read it to him when he needed help (omitting the bad acid trip part!). Maybe yes, probably no, I’ll never know and it doesn’t matter. 

 

But this little story surfaced as an example of a “random act of kindness” that ended up in my skillset and made me happy that I could be of help. I don’t deserve any credit for it, just offer it as an example of the small things we can do they don’t give prizes or awards for—nor should they— but it perhaps much more important than the winning an Oscar. (Especially if you do something unkind after winning that Oscar!)

 

The teacher in yesterday’s post who thanked me for inviting her into the school’s musical community went on to tell another story. Truth be told, I didn’t remember that much about the interaction she describes, but was moved that she did and happy that against all odds, I had somehow done the right thing.  (I’m sure there were similar occasions with other people when I didn’t!) Here’s what she wrote: 

 

Once at a staff meeting, an African American woman led us through a diversity training where we were asked to speak of our identities. We were partners and I was vulnerable with you in a way that peeled away layers of scabs and scars. At the time, I think I may have been afraid of the side of you that was a cis white man (to speak in today’s vernacular of wokeness). I cried through our whole conversation. The next day, you sat under a tree with me and spoke of being Jewish, of your childhood and what you had been thinking since we spoke. No cis white man had ever/ has ever— held space for me like that. And here I am, here we are, —20 years after that time—and that memory is seared into the part of me that remains unfailing full of love for you. I know you will carry on and spread your love and gifts to the world, leaving a wake of people such as myself who will never forget the great gift of you.

 

Sometimes in writing old-fashioned letters, a teardrop might fall and mark the page, but it doesn’t work on computer keyboards. Nevertheless, the keypad is wet after re-writing the above. Without the occasion of this retirement party, I never would have known. 

 

So three things:

 

1) Let’s remember to create occasions where such stories can come forth. They matter. 

 

2) Simply listening to someone can often be the greatest gift and blessing we can confer.

 

3) Blessing blesses both the person giving it and the person receiving it. 

 

I hope these three pebbles thrown into the pond of conferring blessing will create rings that radiate out to reach those in need. Which is all of us. 

 

And if you ever need someone to read the Wind in the Willows to you or your children, I’m your man.