What is $2 Worth to You?

In 1997, I began a new job as Lunch and Dinner Hostess in a long-time loved restaurant in a town where I grew up from the age of 10. I loved my work because customer service comes very easily to me. I just love people.
It was a simple job for the most part - except when the walls were bursting with customers.
One lunchtime on a weekday I took a businessman to the next available booth to await his friend. I treated him like I treated everyone else - with friendly courtesy and respect. The next time I spoke to him was when he was leaving. He stopped at the desk and pressed into the palm of my hand two one-dollar bills, folded neatly - the first "tip" I had ever received. Then he proceeded to tell me what qualities he saw in me that he respected, in treating everyone well and being of service to their needs. What a kind voice and kindly face. He looked at me like I was his sister. I don't really need to, but I will add that this gentleman was African-American. I will be glad when the day comes that such statements are entirely redundant; but this is meaningful to me.
There have been terrific difficult times in my life, when I barely had two pennies to rub together - but I have NEVER spent, and will never use those two one-dollar bills. Their real value to me warms my heart and reminds me of a time when no one else in my life ever said such encouraging words about my qualities, except this one person.
I thought of this tonight, as memories will sometimes flit by like a little 'bluebird of happiness', and I pray for the kind man that wherever he is that he is doing well. Surely, God knows his good works - surely, I am not the only receiver of his kindness.
That $2 I have tucked away in a box for safe remembering is worth far more to me than I can fully say. It was like a drop of water on a dry sponge. Thank you, sir.

Our Wealth, Our Strength, Our Humanness

As I look out on this sunny morning, beautiful and frost-laden, watching the ducks bobbing on the waters of Puget Sound, I was reminded in this peaceful setting not to forget what it is to be a regular American living unafraid in this great nation, living a life not filled with money in the bank but in freedom. I remember times of great anxiety and lack, and crying, when I suddenly realized that the wealthiest, most "successful" person could not have any more than I did. I was able to drive from point A to point B just like them - just different vehicles. But I got to point B. Nor could they see more beauty than I was seeing. We saw the same thing and all the money in the world could not change their view to something better - we'd be seeing the same thing.
Sitting at a picnic table in the warm sunshine at Port Gamble and facing Puget Sound westward - oh, so beautiful; or driving over Hood Canal Bridge seeing the huge, craggy, white peaks of the Olympic Mountains not so far away, and looking north at the snow-laden Cascade Mountains with majestic Mt. Baker - how could I feel "poor"? The richness of the natural world is for all to see and no one has more of it than another - even if only seeing it in picture books.
The elements of evil would try to tear down everything of value to our souls - and there are people who are willing to be a part of this dismantling of our road to becoming a better nation. Confrontation and anger and a sense of superiority due to their sense of inferiority, among other factors leads many people to become pawns for evil: And so, we see that freedoms are being threatened by those who would try to imprison us. Even in the days of the holocaust in Europe in the 1900's, there were those people who kept appreciating what they were able to, even in others, fellow humans who did not lose their humanness - their goodness, compassion. I know many died anyway, but they did not lose.
It is totally clear that some major showdown will happen in our nation. Do not lose hope. Hate to say this but pimples are a good example, and there are many in life - they cause a lot of trouble, not pretty, but once removed, healing comes. I feel sure you got the visual on that! Bloated, red and swollen are descriptions not only of blemishes, but in The Bible in Revelation, those words describe the great red dragon, which started out as a lying conniving snake in Genesis. The end of the story is already clear and I am grateful to know that there is a Second Coming.
In the meantime, let us not lose our Americanness; let us not lose our tempers so easily. There is nothing to lose but fear itself.
Let us stay strong, keep choosing the high road, and gain ever more in compassion and appreciation for life, for there is our wealth.
One more thing: Our dear nation has a lot of reconciling and correcting of things - just like we do in cleaning house when the dust is too thick and the mud covers the porch and weeds have overgrown our flowerbeds. Mistakes and lies of former politicians and others of money who have taken lands and sacred places away from the many millions who lived in this beautiful nation first, who lied and knew it, and had no problem taking the lives of innocents - we have some old business to take care of.
Choosing to take the high road is far more difficult, and usually kind of scary - but it leads to healing and reconciliation.
Let us NOT forget, but imagine what a much better existence can come because we stood strong and humble. In this I pray.