Last night I left the office early. Departing before 5:30 I left so as to avoid having to be the person to activate the alarm. Going out early meant I had to walk about 10 minutes to the nearest Panera Bread Company, a chain sandwich, coffee and pastry shop. My wife was going to meet me there.
On the way to our meeting point I had to walk through a park. As I took the paved but cleared path from one side of the park to the other I saw a small Kroger shopping cart. Wheels up it sat in a snow drift. I pulled the cart out and decided to be a good doobie. My thought was that I would take over to the front of Panera. Panera and Kroger are three doors apart with a World Market in between. My hope was that the Kroger cart kids would round it up at the end of the business day.
I have no vested interest in Kroger. Moving the cart closer to the store from whence it came just seemed like a nice thing to do. Like Earl and his list of wrongs maybe I needed to work out some karma. I mean thirty years ago I took a Kroger cart from this self-same Kroger and loaded my very loaded wife in it and pushed her back to the dorm. It was after an evening at the long gone, often lamented Boom Boom Room. The name of the bar should tell you what kind of place it was.
Whatever the reason I took the cart back. Ah, but I am sure now there will be consequences and not the ones I intended. As I pushed the cart back I took my briefcase off my shoulder and put it in the basket. From the point I picked the cart up I had to traverse the park, several store front facades and then a large parking lot. It didn’t click to me until I was almost to Panera that some passing cars were giving me the once over as they went by. Limping with my bag in the cart I looked well odd. The looks were beyond glances but didn’t really reach the level of glares.
How long will it be before my wife gets that first call about whether I have gone insane or become homeless? I can hear the call, “Mrs. T. I saw your husband shuffling through the mall parking lot with his belongings in a grocery cart. Is everything okay?”
I guess that is the thing about large scale spiritual forces. Trying to do the right thing isn’t like putting your money in a soda pop machine and pressing a selection. In the case of the drink machine you hit Diet Coke and you get Diet Coke. On the spiritual side when you try to do the right thing, when you try and address the deficits of the divine in your life what comes to you in return is not an automatic pass for something you did wrong that day (or thirty years earlier). Often the response is enigmatic or more likely it is a sideways response.
A simple act is like a stone thrown in a pond. The ripples move out and touch things you never contemplated. I hear you thinking but nobody has called yet.
I have been at this long enough to know they will. It may not be a call but someone will bring it up, I promise.
Last night I left the office early. Departing before 5:30 I left so as to avoid having to be the person to activate the alarm. Going out early meant I had to walk about 10 minutes to the nearest Panera Bread Company, a chain sandwich, coffee and pastry shop. My wife was going to meet me there.
On the way to our meeting point I had to walk through a park. As I took the paved but cleared path from one side of the park to the other I saw a small Kroger shopping cart. Wheels up it sat in a snow drift. I pulled the cart out and decided to be a good doobie. My thought was that I would take over to the front of Panera. Panera and Kroger are three doors apart with a World Market in between. My hope was that the Kroger cart kids would round it up at the end of the business day.
I have no vested interest in Kroger. Moving the cart closer to the store from whence it came just seemed like a nice thing to do. Like Earl and his list of wrongs maybe I needed to work out some karma. I mean thirty years ago I took a Kroger cart from this self-same Kroger and loaded my very loaded wife in it and pushed her back to the dorm. It was after an evening at the long gone, often lamented Boom Boom Room. The name of the bar should tell you what kind of place it was.
Whatever the reason I took the cart back. Ah, but I am sure now there will be consequences and not the ones I intended. As I pushed the cart back I took my briefcase off my shoulder and put it in the basket. From the point I picked the cart up I had to traverse the park, several store front facades and then a large parking lot. It didn’t click to me until I was almost to Panera that some passing cars were giving me the once over as they went by. Limping with my bag in the cart I looked well odd. The looks were beyond glances but didn’t really reach the level of glares.
How long will it be before my wife gets that first call about whether I have gone insane or become homeless? I can hear the call, “Mrs. T. I saw your husband shuffling through the mall parking lot with his belongings in a grocery cart. Is everything okay?”
I guess that is the thing about large scale spiritual forces. Trying to do the right thing isn’t like putting your money in a soda pop machine and pressing a selection. In the case of the drink machine you hit Diet Coke and you get Diet Coke. On the spiritual side when you try to do the right thing, when you try and address the deficits of the divine in your life what comes to you in return is not an automatic pass for something you did wrong that day (or thirty years earlier). Often the response is enigmatic or more likely it is a sideways response.
A simple act is like a stone thrown in a pond. The ripples move out and touch things you never contemplated. I hear you thinking but nobody has called yet.
I have been at this long enough to know they will. It may not be a call but someone will bring it up, I promise. Really I just wanted to get to Panera to read a little more from Tricycle the Buddhist monthly.
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