182) Random Acts of Kindness

(Photo from Wikipedia.)

Yesterday I experienced a random act of kindness.

I had an appointment to see an apartment close to Times Square (flashbacks of working on Hollywood Blvd...shudder), but was about twenty minutes early. It had started to rain, so I ducked into the church of St. Mary the Virgin across the street. I figured I'd stay dry and check out the architecture in the meantime. (Those who know me know that I'm agnostic, but have an appreciation for places of worship.)

After wandering around the dark, empty church, I prepared to face the cold and the wet outside. Then I heard someone say, "Hey," behind me. I tensed and turned to see a man in plain clothes. My don't-talk-to-strangers guard went up.

"Do you have an umbrella?" he said.

I admitted that I didn't.

"Would you like one? We have extras."

He went into a back room and came back with a compact zebra patterned umbrella. He explained that church goers often leave their umbrellas behind and never come back for them. As I took the orphaned umbrella, I braced myself for the religiously motivated conversion speech that I thought would follow.

Nothing. He bid me goodbye, and went about his business.

The umbrella was a total lifesaver, as it continued to rain for the rest of the day. It was a small gesture that didn't ask for anything in return, and it made all the difference. In every sense of the phrase, it was a random act of kindness.

As much as I'd like to have nice things like that happen to me all the time, I think it's the rarity of random acts of kindness that makes them so profound and memorable. Like any good thing in excess, we would come to take them for granted. Yes, maybe the world would be a better place if everyone committed random acts of kindness every day. But it would cease to be random, and be more like expected acts of kindness. By keeping random acts of kindness, well, random, we are better able to appreciate the juxtaposition of extra kindness and everyday life. Thus, each random act remains impactful when experienced.