Sweet World

I can't speak for anyone else, but answers about Eternity are harder to come by the older I get. Never a churchgoer - much less religious - I have had to content myself with uncertainty after all of the fun here on Earth is over.

Sometimes this lack of a focused faith is troubling, but not often. It's a big planet after all, full of billions of other people striving for the same answers. Many have found a peace that suits them; still just as many others like me, not.

Remarkably, human morality has never been bound within any one race, border or continent. Over more than two millennia, the major faiths that have emerged memorialized independently of each other an eerily similar code of good conduct. I find this universality extremely comforting, even as my own search continues.

This search, however, may lead towards unexpected ends. Words, something I once routinely put my trust and "faith" in, have begun to lose their luster and appeal. Broken promises - given and received - accrued throughout all of our adulthoods, take their toll. Words begin to matter less.

What we actually do then, over the course of a lifetime should matter - in our final reckoning. Shouldn't it? After all, aren't actions the currency in which mankind centers and fine-tunes its moral compass?

I called my son immediately prior to writing this afternoon. He could only speak for a moment, but asked me what the blogpost was going to be about this week. I told him I had had no idea up until a few hours ago but that two small, opposite occurrences had provided me inspiration. "What happened," he asked.

After work yesterday, I planned to go straight to Target. For a week or more I had been scoping out new glasses in their optical shop. Payday meant purchase. I strode purposefully into the store lost in thought, largely ignorant of what was occurring around me. Five feet in front of me two employees had just bent down to pick up an armful of paper bags one of them had dropped. Without missing a beat - and barely registering their presence - I skirted around them absent-mindedly, saying, "Oopsy, excuse me." Ten feet past them, I overheard one employee say, ". . . and that guy just kept walking by."

They must have been talking about me, right - not stopping to help? I turned back and watched them for a moment. Within seconds, they had gathered the bags up and returned to their other duties. No dirty looks, no choice words. I was torn between thoughts of - You should have helped them, Eric - and - Yes but they were already picking them up as I walked by. Guilt feelings lingered.

Fast forward to this morning and I was driving my daughter to a 30 minute voice lesson. Usually, these lessons are in the evening, which means waiting in the car. A rare daytime lesson gave me the opportunity to take a walk instead. Timed perfectly, I returned to my car after 25 minutes and waited for my daughter to emerge from her lesson.

But during this short interval a van pulled up in front of me and stopped diagonally on the quiet residential street. Odd, I thought. Watching, I saw a man in his early 60's climb out of the front seat. As he began slowly walking, I couldn't help but notice that he struggled with some disability. While his companion parked, he approached the curb with a great deal of hesitation. Mesmerized, I watched him lean against a thick tree for balance. Stepping up six inches, I now understood, was going to take all of his effort.

Get the hell out of your car and help him, I heard a voice in my head command. Approaching the gentleman, I said, "Sir, can I help you up?" Accepting my offer and my arm, he gingerly stepped onto the curb. I stayed behind him with my arm on his shoulder until he was well past the curb's edge. By this time the driver (his wife) was beside us, taking over from me. Supporting him as he conquered two more steps up leading to their house, she turned back to me and silently mouthed Thank you, her expression full of tearful gratitude.

I thought about that man's struggle and his wife's reaction to my helping hand the entire drive home. It was such a small moment - just as small as the moment in Target the day before. But a lifetime is made up of thousands of equally small, disparate moments, each adding up in life's ledger.

"So that's what I'm going to write about," I said.

My son is a young man who has found a faith. I admire his steadfastness, and his courage. He has a clarity that provides him comfort and purpose - undoubtedly keeping him away from the kind of trouble his father didn't avoid during his first year of college.

Drew was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "My minister told me and my friends that we need to be Feet-Washers; that actions - big or small - and humility will make more of a difference in our lives and in our world than anything we ever say."

Understanding his Biblical reference, I chuckled at the symmetry of the last two days, as well as the wisdom the son was imparting to the father. Only 18, it is a relief that he gets it in ways that I am only beginning to understand. Somehow he has managed to sift through the relentless dogma religion often trolls out and instead has chosen to build his life on principles that sharpen one's identity rather than erode it.

I never expected - in mid-life - to begin learning more about myself from my son. But since he left home for adulthood that is exactly what has happened. I am noticing with clearer eyes "how sweet the world can be."