She said, "It is a shame that you have retired."

Greetings!

A long time spiritual seeker once said in a gathering that he lived in the moment of now.  His mind was often clear and calm.  I thought 'Wow!  That would be great!' 

Unlike the brother / teacher, my mind was busy except when I was really focused on doing something.  Otherwise, it was like a recorder that played naturally yet randomly of what it had recorded, e.g. chanting / affirmation that I learned,  the music that I loved, and the silly, uplifting short songs that I created.  Once in a while, a past event or incident might pop up in my mind too.

Quite a while back, an incident came to my mind.  It happened over a year ago.  I had put it behind me.  Therefore, I did not think much of it afterward.  As time went on, more experiences that had something to do with that incident surfaced in my mind.  Eventually, it caused me to take a good look within and examine my pattern / the way I went about in life.

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Last year I was excited to learn that a new holistic center would be opening in a city near me.  In the months before its grand opening, the center held some promotional events.  I had gone to a few of those events.

One day I went to its pre-opening celebration.  The parking lot was almost full.  After listening to a couple of presentations by the professionals that had leased spaces in the center, I visited different rooms in the building.  It was a rectangular building.  The size of rooms varied.  The hallway was narrow.  At one point while I was in the hallway, I stopped walking so as to let people walked out of a room.  A woman that came out of the room looked me up and down.  

She said, "What profession are you in?"

Caught by surprise, it took me a while to process what she said.  I said, "I am retired."  

She asked, "What do you do before you retire?"

I pondered what do say.  I said, "I was a caregiver."

She seemed to be puzzled by my answer.  She said, "But, you know healing, don't you?"

Ah, she could see, I thought.  I said, "Yes, I do."

Immediately, I could feel her disapproval of me.  She walked away saying, "It is a shame that you have retired!"  

I saw her walked into another room.  I decided to go to that room because I wanted to talk to her.  A few people were inside looking at the display.  She did not look at me as if she did not want to talk anymore.  A young woman walked in.  I recognized her.  She was one of the professionals that gave talk earlier.  She and the woman greeted one another as if they knew each other well.  They talked quietly for a while.  The young woman looked at me.  She said, "It may be we can work together."  It seemed she had other thing to attend to.  She said 'bye' to the woman, and left the room.  Soon the woman left too. 

Sometimes I did not know what to think after an experience liked this happened.      

This kind of incidents happened from time to time.  I believed I had written about an incident that happened while I was with the small church.  One Sunday I took part in the quarterly healing service.  When it was over, a woman walked to me and said "You are a healer!  Why are you working in a cafeteria?"  I stood there thinking "Who is she?  She looks somewhat familiar?  How does she know I work in a cafeteria?"  Before I said anything, she walked away.  In A Strange Conversation with A Professor , the professor seemed to know a lot about me while it was the first time we met.  In The Lesson of Importance , I found it challenging to take in what others said of me.  "You are important to the church and the community."  I never thought I was important or not.  When people said things about me out of nowhere, the human I needed time to process.  Did he / she really say what I thought I had heard?  Why did he / she say that?  Could I have heard it wrong?  He / she often walked away before I could respond.

I wished I was quick to respond, but I was not.  Afterward, I had to deal with the unsettling emotion.

In the above case, her words "it is a shame that you have retired' kind of bothered me.  She did not know me.  How could someone that I had not met before said that to me!  I would have appreciated if she sat down and talked to me.  It might be I should have taken the initiative to ask her if we could talk.  

I share my experience 'as is'.  I shall share with you my introspection in later post(s).

Love and Light,

Q of D

                                           

HOPE is forever the guiding LIGHT

Greetings!

Welcome, October 2024!

Fall is my favorite season.  Recently we have many cloudy days.  Luckily, I no longer feel down when the sky is gray or dark.  (Re Writing Is Healing and On a cloudy, gloomy morning, I go looking for the Sun )

A few days ago, I went shopping for groceries.  I went to the Middle-Eastern store.  When I finished shopping, I chose to line up at the checkout lane where my friend was working.  She had told me she felt happy on sunny days.  This day was cloudy and somewhat chilly.  Therefore, I asked, "How do you feel on this cloudy day?"  She said, "It is chilly.  That is why I have my jacket on.  I wish it is still in the 80 degrees."  After I paid and put everything in my shopping cart, she gave me a couple of extra new bags.  I wondered why.  She said, "It is raining!  The bags are for you to put over your head."  I did not know it was raining outside.  With the plastic bags over my head, I loaded the groceries into my car with ease.  Thank you, Friend, for being considerate and kind.  I was grateful that I met kind people all the time .  

I would like to take this opportunity to thank an exceptional earth angel again.  His name is Eric.  Please view my post The Good Samaritans .

I also recalled the muscular earth angel (or an angel in human form ?) that came to our rescue when the old man in a heavy motorized wheelchair got stuck in the narrow path.  (Re The Divine knows what will happen and an earth angel awaits )

A loved one thought that I believed everyone I met was good / kind.  He was somewhat concerned about my safety.  I knew very well that there were all kind of people in the world.  I always paid attention to the surroundings.  On several occasions, I was able to save myself, my loved ones as well as a few that did not know me from harm because I was alert.  

Hurricane Helene had caused much destructions and damages especially in North Carolina.  Let us keep all in our prayers.  All the agencies from the Federal and local government worked days and nights to bring relief to those that desperately needed help.  On the news, I learned a rescue team from our state was already there to help.  Whenever other states needed help, the rescue team in our state was always among the first ones to help.  

With this kind of spirit, government doing the best they can for the people, states assisting one another, people helping neighbors, we are alright; hope is forever the guiding light.

Love and Peace,

Q of D

      

  

I Meet Kind People All The Time

Greetings!

I went shopping for groceries about twice a week.  I shopped at different stores.  Some people regarded going to stores as chores that nothing eventful would happen on those trips.  I did have some interesting experiences now and then.  As an older person, I could look at others with understanding because I had gone through the stages and challenges of life.  I remembered the years I felt impatience and anxious standing in long lines knowing that I must rush back to the restaurant.  Nowadays, sometimes I let people go ahead of me when I felt he / she was in a rush.   

In Growing old in Grace , I mentioned I met kind people all the time.  These experiences brought me joy and a smile on my face.

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There was a Middle-Eastern store near where I lived.  I went there once a week.  The store had a good produce department.  Most of all, I liked the energy / atmosphere there.  Most of the customers were from different Middle Eastern countries.  Sometimes they talked to one another in their own languages, i.e. the language they were used to.  There was a sense of joy in the store because it was a place where they met familiar faces.  They greeted one another as if they were home.    

Some people here in USA found it offensive when people spoke in languages other than English in public.  When we held that opinion against others, we might not have realized we were the ones to taste the negative / unpleasant emotion first before we projected it outward.  

We had to understand children might easily learn a new language, but it was not as easy for their parents / grandparents / great grandparents.  For a few years, the family (a couple with 2 sons) that lived next door was from a Middle Eastern country.  The man could not speak English.  He was kind and considerate.  He often came out of his apartment to hold the entrance door open when he saw us unloading groceries from our car.  His wife spoke some English.  Later, she found a job working in a hotel.  After a couple of years, their sons spoke English fluently.  They had moved to another place some years ago.

In time, a cashier and I greeted each other with "How are you doing my friend?"  I did not recall when or how it started.  I did not do anything different from other customers except I had always greeted others truthfully.  (Re my post Truthfulness )  One day, I lined up at her lane again.  As she said, "Nice to see you, my friend!"  I heard a cashier from another lane protested, "No, she (i.e. me) is my friend!"  I turned my head backward, and saw the other cashier's smiling face.  The other cashier was also very nice.  She had told me that she felt happy whenever she saw the sun.  So there they were saying "she is my friend" and "no, she is my friend".  I said, "We are all friends!"  My friend said, "Yes, we are all friends!  How good are you that we fight to call you 'my friend'!"  We looked at each other and smiled happily.

In a joyful mood, I left the store, and drove to another store.  I parked the car, and walked toward the store.  As I was near the entrance, a black gentleman happened to walk out of the store.  He exclaimed, "Oh, I love your smile!  Wow!  Please keep smiling!  Don't stop smiling!  What a blessing!  Many, many blessings to you!"  While he was walking away, he looked back at me and asked me to keep smiling and don't stop.  I looked at him and said, "Many blessings to you too."

This experience reminded me of Who Smiles? Who Sees?

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I was second in line in a checkout lane.  The cashier seemed to be agitated.  Soon a store supervisor came.  He was a young man is his early 20 s.  While we looked on, the cashier sternly scolded him for a while.  It seemed the cashier might have been scheduled to take a break at a certain time, but the supervisor was ten minutes late.  (I supposed the cashier might be hungry.)  The young man did not react, and just let her blew off steam.  Afterward, the cashier gave him the key for the register, and left.  It was an awkward moment.  Every one at the checkout lane included the bagger was quiet, and the air around us was somewhat heavy.

I had come to this store regularly.  Over the speaker, I heard the management called his name from time to time.  For example, there was nobody at the Customer Service, he was told to go over there to help.  He helped other cashiers patiently too.  He seemed to be the one that was available and willing to help here and there.

When it was time for me to pay for the groceries, I looked at him and said, "XXXXXX, the world appreciates someone like you who is always willing to help here and there."  It took a short while for him to take it in.  Then he said, "Thank you."  The air around us changed.  There was a smile on everyone's face in the checkout lane.  The bagger looked at me with a big smile and said, "Thank you."

"See something beautiful, Say something beautiful" was what I said during a zoom meeting.  We could see all the wrong in the world, in others or in ourselves.  But, we had to remember the importance of affirming the good / the beautiful that we saw in ourselves, in others and in the world.

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Some of my friends that were into spirituality were surprised to hear that I watched football and basketball games in addition to watching news daily.  I watched some TV shows and dramas too.

One day, I was in a store.  

It was common courtesy to put a checkout divider / stick at the end of our groceries on the conveyer belt.  Sometimes the one in the front looked back at the one next in line with a smile / nod as an acknowledgement while placing the divider.  The one behind would say "thank you", i.e. thanks for putting the divider there so that he / she could begin loading the groceries onto the conveyer belt.  This was not something that we must do.  In my experience, I observed women were more likely to greet the one that stood behind than men did.

As I put the divider behind my groceries, I observed the man behind me was tall and might be in his 30 s.  He looked straight ahead.  I kind of smiled in my heart because my son had told me he often looked straight ahead instead of observing as I did.

I bought quite some groceries that day.  As I was about to put the groceries into the trunk of my car, someone walked past me.  It was the tall young man.  He had bought only a few items.  He walked to a big van which was next to my car.  I saw that he wore our state football team T-shirt.  

I smiled and said, "Too bad the XXXXX lost (in the playoff)."  

He said, "It does not matter because they did good."

I said, "Yes, it is true.  It has been a good year for our state.  The university also won the national championship."

He quickly put what he bought into his van, and came over to my side.  He asked, "May I help you to load the water into your car?"

I gladly said, "Yes! Thank you!"  

He loaded the pack of 24 bottles of water into the trunk.

I continued to load the rest of the items.  I was somewhat surprised he continued to stand near where I was.  He stood there respectfully.  I did not feel the need to ask why.  

After I finished putting everything in the trunk, he said, "May I push your shopping cart over there so as to save you a trip?"  

Indeed, the cart corral was not near where I parked my car.  I looked at this young man with a broad smile, and thanked him wholeheartedly.  Then he joyfully pushed the shopping cart toward the cart corral.

In this brief interaction, two strangers through a simple conversation on sports, one kindly offered help and one gladly received help.  How great was (is) the Loving Divine!

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I learned some new words while writing this post, e.g. cart corral.  For years I thought my limited English was my shortcoming and a Chinese woman in a western culture was a disadvantage.  It turned out it was by design that I came in this way.  (Re Our Self-perceived Shortcoming and Disadvantages )  

It might seem I spent too much time on the mundane stuff.  I came to live an ordinary life as an ordinary person.  If I knew nothing about sports, the above conversation would not have taken place.  I am alright I am. 

Love and Peace,

Q of D