For each act of hatred that makes the news, a dozen of acts of goodness go unseen in our world. –Bishop Desmond Tutu
Each time I taught my graduate counseling class in Spiritual Formation, I would teach the spiritual practice of walking mindfully. Students were already comfortable with sitting meditation and the breathwork that is part of mindfulness. So after explaining that they would be going outside for 15 minutes to practice walking mindfully, I let them go to it.
I watched them from a short distance.
Some students walked at a very slow pace, taking their time to feel the solidity of the ground beneath them. Some students would take off their shoes and wiggle their feet in the soft spring grass, then pick a blade, sniff it, and carry it with them as they walked. Some students walked a couple of steps and then stopped beneath a tree or the clouded sky and gaze at what was in front of or above them for minutes at a time.
After 15 minutes, I called them back to the classroom with a bell, and had them journal their experience. Then, anyone who wanted to could share what this was like.
“I walk this path every day to this building, but I never noticed the dappling of shade and sun until today,” one student said.
“I heard birds calling,” another said. “Are they always there? I never noticed them before on campus.”
“I’m always in a rush to get to class and I realized today that I miss so much around me,” a young woman said in a choked voice. “What else am I missing?”
All of us are rushing somewhere, or caught by our screens, or thinking about what we need to do 10 minutes or an hour in the future. What are we missing?
What small acts of kindness did we receive today that we rushed through and barely noticed? A smile when we took our freshly brewed coffee from the clerk at the coffee shop? A door held open by . . . was it a boy or a woman? We didn’t notice.
A maintenance person whistling while emptying the circular files in the computer room? A girl with a My Little Pony backpack stooping down repeatedly to pick up pieces of paper trash and running to the trash can at the end of the parking lot to toss her balled up trash in it, yelling “Score!”
Little pieces of goodness all around us. I’m betting there are 10 . . . 15 . . . maybe more every day that I fail to notice — and fail to affirm. Affirming, noticing, appreciating with words or gestures adds positive energy to those small acts of goodness and establishes a connection with the person offering goodness.
In times like these when it seems easier to see the world filled with dark, diminishing, and destructive words and acts that tear down rather than build up, perhaps small acts of goodness that are barely noticeable can offer hope that love and light can win.
Pilgrimages and Paths 