| 09 December 2009
"It should be kept in mind that underestimating other people is the job of Satan."
I think this includes underestimating oneself as well. ;-)
A few years ago, a Christian priest was working in a homeless shelter for men. For some reason known only to this person, one of the homeless men gave the priest a copy of the Quran that looked like this:
It seems that the man had gotten it from his masjid...it's the edition that comes gratis from Saudi Arabia as a dawah initiative. So the homeless man, wanting to thank the priest for his efforts, gave him what he had: a free copy of the Quran.
A few years later, I borrow the book and as a result of something the priest said in passing, and as a result of reading this gift from a homeless man, I wind up converting to Islam.
I'm a teacher....
A good deed, regardless of its stature, may take people to unthought-of places.
There was a movie some years ago called "The Butterfly Effect." In theory, the flapping of a butterfly's wings on one side of the world could **theoretically** cause a typhoon on the other side of the earth.
You just never know.
Never underestimate the smallest good deed. You have no way of knowing what its ripple effect might be, or what effect that small deed may have on other people whose lives may be very, very different from your own. There is no such thing as "I ONLY..." or "I JUST...." or "it was nothing."
Everything is something. You have absolutely no way of knowing how what seems like a small deed to you, means to someone else or where it might lead.
Like the night I took the east door instead of the west door.
One day a long time ago when I was in high school, I was leaving a school dance. For some reason known only to the Unseen, instead of taking one way out of the building to walk home, I took a different route.
On my way out as I passed the hedge that used to line the front of the school building, I saw a pair of feet sticking out. The feet were attached to a very thin girl who was just a year behind me, so I knew who she was.... I stopped, checked on her, and it turned out that she was passed out and had been throwing up.
The scary part of that was that she'd been lying on her BACK, so the vomit was in danger of choking her. I turned her over on her stomach and ran to get a police officer who was nearby. He had not noticed her lying there. The only reason I walked by her that night was that I'd taken a different exit, which I 'd done...can't remember why, now. Maybe it was to get away from a guy who was annoying me. So maybe I left the dance early and headed home.... taking the east door to escape LoverBoy Annoying Dude.
I pointed the cop in the girl's direction, told him to call an ambulance right away, and then hurried home.
I heard through the student grapevine on Monday that she'd nearly died, and had she not been given emergency care within that exact time frame, she'd have died. As it was, she'd had to have her stomach pumped and was put on a ventilator for a while. See, she was SO THIN that her blood alcohol had reached nearly fatal levels. Nobody knew that I was the one who'd found her and I said nothing till... today, actually, to make this point in this essay. That was over 35 years ago. Did she marry, have children? What do her children do? What if one of them became the doctor or police officer or psychologist who saves **your** child's life? What if?
All because I took the east door instead of the west door.
You never know. You just never, ever know. :)
No deed is too small. You just DO NOT KNOW what it might mean to somebody else, whose life is different from your own. You just never know. (And btw: I do not analyze things too much. I analyze them just enough.)