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Somebody Tagged Me!

"'What is it?' Sabrina asked. One glance inside and my suspicion was confirmed. Lying inside were 2 tupperware containers. I could not see their contents from my bird's eye view but I could see a fresh mango and a bag of chocolates peeking from the corner of the bag. And the incredible aroma had already permeated the front office area.

'Someone has tagged me with an anonymous act of kindness!' I replied with a smile and a shake of my head. The joy and gratitude that I was feeling must have been the same feeling that went through the people that we fed on Saturday's Hear the Homeless event. It was the exact same thing. I was quietly going about my day when someone stopped me and made an offering to me, an offering from the heart." Katy Turse shares her real world story of receiving an unexpected act of kindness.

Somebody Tagged Me!
--by Katy Turse, Original Story, Sep 26, 2012

"Katy, please come to the front desk. Katy, you have a package at the front desk."

Immediately my sensors were on. Package? Why do I have a package at work? Did I order something? Did my mom send me something? Maybe it's from one of my clients. They might have mailed their paperwork in using priority mail.

But they wouldn't have called me over the intercom. Hmmmm, a package.

Wait a minute.........could it be........is it...did they....

As I approached the front desk Sabrina and Tatiana sat comfortably in their chairs in front of their computers. Nothing was out of the ordinary. They were focused on their tasks at hand and barely noticed me approaching, a smile already planted on my face.

"You called me?" I asked, somewhat suspiciously. For an instant I became unsure that there even was a package there waiting for me, maybe I was confused.

Sabrina turned to Tatiana. "Oh yeah, the doorman brought this up and told us to give it to you." As Tatiana pulled a brown paper bag from under her desk, straining from the weight of its' contents to pass it over her desk from her sitting position.

"What is it?" Sabrina asked.

One glance inside and my suspicion was confirmed. Lying inside were 2 tupperware containers. I could not see their contents from my bird's eye view but I could see a fresh mango and a bag of chocolates peeking from the corner of the bag. And the incredible aroma had already permeated the front office area.

"Someone has tagged me with an anonymous act of kindness." I replied with a smile and a shake of my head.

I rounded the corner, while dipping my hand into the bag. I lifted a round container full of fresh made Dal, finding underneath an even larger container filled with warm aloo parathas (my favorite kind!!), rice, and yogurt. In a smaller tub was the perfect amount of pickled mango. Mmmmmmmmmmm!! I set the bag down and saw an envelope amongst the Tupperware. Inside was a beautiful card with pressed flowers on the top. Inside read, "They say the world is round. What we send out eventually finds its way back home." Within that same envelope, a Smile card.

I had to swallow about three times as I stared at this card. My heart was beating fast and my body was electric with the shower of warmth that seemed to just pour through this card into my hands, throughout the rest of my body. I could do nothing but shake my head and smile, trying not to cry.

As Sujatha and I sat eating this amazingly delicious food an intense realization came over me. The joy and gratitude that I was feeling must have been the same feeling that went through the people that we fed on Saturday's Hear the Homeless event!! It was the exact same thing. I was quietly going about my day when someone stopped me and made an offering to me, an offering from the heart that I was 100% not expecting. I sat wondering who had done this and why, marvelling at the time and care that they took to provide such a healthy, delicious, well balanced meal. I stared at the careful packaging. I thought about how amazing it was that someone took time out of their day just to do this one thing for me, this one simple thing that had so many layers of meaning and depth. I recognized how much this one gesture meant to me and how much it brightened my day. It made me feel loved, it made me feel that someone (or some people) really cared about me enough to go out of their way to provide me with something as simple as a delicious lunch.

I know I felt deeply about sharing lunches with the homeless on Saturday. I enjoyed it, I experienced a lot, I witnessed people (myself included) take away lessons that will be with them for the rest of their lives, I watched them transform fears and doubts, I observed the smiles that erupted from the heart onto the faces of everyone, those being fed and those feeding. It was very meaningful to me. However, being here today, receiving this meal, enjoying it with a friend, I became one of those people. I was in their shoes and I believe I felt how they must have; it suddenly all came together for me.

I cannot express to you what I feel. I am not sad yet their is something so strong in my heart that I feel like I must cry. I am so grateful. I am so inspired. I am so contented and so joyful. I am so so lucky.

Thank you. Thank you not only for this lunch, but for this lesson. It is more meaningful to me than I could have ever possibly imagined.

http://www.dailygood.org/view.php?sid=321

Be The Change
"The whole process of life is a giving. It is a transaction. In every giving there is a taking." A thoughtful reflection follows.

Make Your Life Into a Giving
--by Jaggi Vasudeva (Dec 27, 2011)

Make your life into a giving. When I say a giving, it is not to be understood as an act. Giving as an act is a deception because, after all, what can you give? Everything that we have, including this body, we have taken from this planet. What we can give is only a paltry part of what we have taken. Giving as an act could be very deceptive and could turn ugly, but if your way of being is giving and your actions are only a manifestation of that, when you open your heart to give, grace invariably seeps in. That is inevitable.

It has been my fortune and privilege that at a very early age, I became witness to a certain state of giving -- my great grandmother who lived to be 113 years of age. In the morning, if she was given breakfast, she would always go about giving away at least two-thirds of it to the ants, birds and squirrels, particularly to the ants. People would say, ‘She is throwing all her food around, this old woman will die without eating,' but they all died while she lived. There were many days where I saw her with a little bit of breakfast that was left on her plate. She would simply sit there, watching the ants eat. Tears would be streaking down her cheeks and when somebody asked, ‘Won't you eat?’ she would say, ‘I'm full. I'm already full.’ It was many years later that I realized her way of transacting with the world. If the ants ate, she was being nourished. A logical mind would never understand this, but it was this nourishment which gave her an extraordinary longevity.

Each of us can also make every act and every breath into a process of giving – seeing how we can contribute to everything around us, no matter what we are doing. In just 24 hours, we will be so rich that the experience of life, the beauty of life, will set a glow on our face because that is the only way life functions. The whole process of life is a giving. It is a transaction. In every giving there is a taking. We are taking more than we are giving, but in your mind, just ignore the taking. You just keep giving because you do not have to take; it will be pushed into you.

There was a man who cleared one hundred acres of forest and made it into farmland. His two sons helped him and they became prosperous. When the man was dying, he called his two sons and told them that the land should never be divided, but the produce should be taken equally, fifty percent, by each son.

Accordingly, they went by their father’s word. One of the brothers got married and had five children. The other one never got married. Life went on and they each took fifty percent. One day, a thought entered the mind of the brother who had a wife and five children: "I'm getting fifty percent; my brother is also getting fifty percent. But I have a wife and five children while my brother has nobody. When he gets old, who will take care of him? He should have a little more than me because I have the wealth of my children. But he is too proud; he will not take it from me." So in the dark of the night, he carried a bagful of grain quietly and walked into his brother’s store, dropped this bag and walked back. Whenever he could, he went on doing this.

The same thought also entered his brother's mind. He thought, "I am alone, my brother has five children to feed and I am getting fifty percent, but if I give him extra, he will not take it." So he started doing the same thing at night. This went on for many years and both of them never noticed. One night, both of the brothers carrying sacks of grains in secrecy walked towards each other's storehouse and came face to face. Suddenly, they realized what was happening.
--Jaggi Vasudeva

http://www.awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=782