“I don’t love you because you’re acting loveable, I love you because it’s what I do…” ~Denise Druce
In India, there is a story about a kind, old man who went into the Ganges River every morning to pray. One day, after praying, he saw a poisonous spider struggling in the water. He cupped it in his hands and carried it ashore. As he placed it on the ground, it stung him. Unknowingly, his prayers for the world diluted the poison.
The next day, the same thing happened. On the third day, he saw the spider again, struggling in the water. As he went to rescue the spider, the creature said “Why do you keep rescuing me? Don’t you know I will sting you every time, because that is what I do?”
The kind man cupped his hands around the spider and said, “Because this is what I do.”
I believe in the very best in humanity. I believe in humans because I see how we act under the most crushing of circumstances. When disaster strikes anywhere in the world, we fly in, we donate, we serve, we pray, we care. I have watched as we have become divided this year over politics, and I believe in my heart that we will come together. We will because that’s what we do.
Mark Nepo says, “There are many reasons to be kind, but perhaps none is as compelling as the spiritual fact that it is what we do. It is how the inner organ of being keeps pumping. Spiders sting. Wolves howl. Ants build small hills that no one sees. And human beings lift each other, no matter the consequences. Even when other beings sting.”
Today, bring to mind berries breaking through ice and snow in the spring. The quiet beauty that nature shows us again and again. Berries do not have any sense of purpose, or charitable hearts. They are not altruistic, or self-sacrificing. They simply grow to be beautiful and delicious, because that is what they do.
That is what they do…
