New Year Kindness

This morning, as I ran along our road, about a half-mile from Elk Cliff Farm, a woman driving from the other direction slowed down and stopped. I opened her passenger door to see what she wanted.

She said, "Would you like a ride or are you jogging?"

I smiled and said, "Jogging, thank you."

As she drove on, Virginia asked, "Do you think she would have turned around and taken you where you wanted to go?"

I think so.

Several years ago, our son called to say his car had conked out on the same road near our house. We said, "Wait a little bit. Someone will help you."

Sure enough. Within 5 minutes, strangers helped push his car into our driveway.

"Strangers?" says Virginia. "Maybe other places, but not here."

I'm reminded of a New Year's resolution: "Be kind."

Also, a Washington Post article on the end-of-the-world craze comes to mind. According to its author, Mayan elders did not view Dec. 21, 2012 as the end of the world, but rather as the completion of a 5,125-year cycle in the Mayan Long Count calendar, and the beginning of a whole new cycle. The new cycle would signal "the end of the dark ages, when toxic sludge from our misguided civilization has gunked up the main evolutionary chamber of the species, and the dawn of a new era, when humanity comes into its own."

Maybe so, but it is up to us to make it so. Strangers offering rides to walking strangers might be a step in the right direction.

Be kind.