Have you ever lived a Holy Moment, a moment when unexpected and unannounced—but suddenly, undeniably, a weight of moment and presence?
I lived one in an AutoZone today. I had made a mess of a motor-service and needed oil-dry to clean our farm shop floor. Maybe it’s funny, or fitting, how God appears in intercessions once we finally commit ourselves to dealing with and restoring to order the messes that we’ve made.
“Can I help you?” a worker asks.
“Oil dry,” I answer. I am led to the back corner of the store where the oil dry is staged. I grab two bags, forty pounds (it’s a real mess).
Checking out, the worker that helped me speaks to another, tone and focus of concern evident in each’s expressions and voice. Not intending to listen, but simply hearing as they speak to one another, myself a third party simply present on account of a processed purchase, I hear, “she’s on a respirator” spoken by the first worker to the second. I know nothing more.
Trying, and failing, to appear welcoming as first’s attention returns to me, he asks, “Is there anything else I can help you with today?” before ringing up the final sale and price.
“I think that’s it,” I answer, and as I set to leave the counter as the worker moves for return to other concerns, I speak, simply wishing to share a little goodwill, “I hope she feels better…whoever you were talking about. I hope she gets better.”
His face registers the sincerity of my words and will and, processing, he speaks without concealment. “It is a suicide…bad decisions, and doing harm to themselves.”
I don’t know what to say. How do you answer that? What can you say? What do you say?
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I speak. The words are meaningless, empty alone, but make effort to offer condolence to and for someone I know nothing about.
As I leave, the worker speaks, “I’m just going to follow out behind you.”
He does, and outside in the open sky of a beautiful day, he speaks more.
The woman is the mother of a coworker. After informing, he speaks a piece to his own history.
“I studied to be a minister,” he shares, “I never studied to be a counselor.”
He thinks to his coworker and their mother whose condition rests near to totality of achievement in their aim and end.
He proceeds.
“There’s nothing we can do. There’s nothing we can do for the hurt. All we can do is listen.
The Good Samaritan, he made a difference because he had compassion. He didn’t love the man. He had compassion, and he cared for the man within the means that he was able.”
I look at the man as he speaks to me. I’ve been to the store a hundred times and he is often the one that has rang me up, helped me: hunting down lights, electric harnesses, fluids, whatever other part I may be needing or searching to find.
Today is the first day I’ve really witnessed and fully taken notice. I listen, it is all I can do, as he speaks from heart.
He tells of what he loves most of his work. “People come here,” he tells, “I can see their flat tire. I can listen to their problem. Maybe I can help them. Maybe I can’t, but I can listen and have compassion for their trouble and try to help in the capacity of my own means.”
The man reflects. He thinks on his means, on the Good Samaritan, on a friend and their mother, and his spirit speaks more.
“Compassion can go a long way,” he speaks directly into me.
I am affected, eyes watering as I listen to words that are gift and message for my spirit—a gift I did not ask for, nor seek to receive, but one that fills me with gratitude as I listen.
“I’ll stop preaching,” he says, returning to a caution that follows after fear of having said too much, especially to a near stranger that spirit senses—right or wrong—that it can trust.
“You aren’t preaching,” I respond. “You’re just speaking your heart, and I am grateful to hear. I’m grateful to listen to all you just said. Thank you.”
*****
Compassion. Its a word I rarely think, and one that, before conversation today, I never associated to the Good Samaritan.
Nighttime, I go to my Bible and seek the story again.
“Blessed are the eyes that see the things which you see. For I say to you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see the things that you see, and have not seen them; and to hear the things that you hear, and have not heard them.
And behold a certain lawyer stood up, tempting (Jesus), and saying, Master, what must I do to possess eternal life?
But (Jesus) said to him: What is written in the law? How readest thou?
He answering, said: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with they whole heart, and with they whole soul, and with all they strength, and with all thy mind: and thy neighbor as thyself.
And he said to him: Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.
But he willing to justify himself, said to Jesus: And who is my neighbor?”
And Jesus answering, said: A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, who also stripped him, and having wounded him went away, leaving him half dead. And it chanced, that a certain priest went down the same way: and seeing him, passed by.
In like manner also a Levite, when he was near the place saw him, passed by.
But a certain Samaritan being on his journey, came near him; and seeing him, was moved with compassion…”
Compassion—the very word spoken and lived by the man today; word and I had never noticed or seen as key in the story’s telling.
“…And going up to him, bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine: and setting him upon his own beast, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day he took out two pence, and gave to the host, and said: Take care of him; and whatsoever thou shalt spend over and above, I, at my return, will repay thee.
Which of these three, in thy opinion, was neighbor to him that fell among the robbers?
But (the lawyer) said: He that shewed mercy to him. And Jesus said to him: Go and do thou in like manner…”[i]
Compassion: we can all live it. We can all help others in the capacity of our own means. It is a piece of my personal belief that the occurrence of miracles in this world are rarely God acting alone but far more often enabled by God’s empowering of instruments, us—in right place, right time, right moment, right spirit—so that when inspired and moved in an affection, we might act and answer on his behalf and, in doing, make the difference that brings another’s miracle to be.
This is a conviction that I keep.
I don’t know why I overheard the conversation.
I don’t know why I chose to speak and wish well for the condition of a stranger.
I don’t know why he chose to speak and share to me.
I don’t know why he chose the parable of the Good Samaritan, emphasis on the word compassion, to speak in that moment.
But listening to his words, heart of him he shared, and going back at night to read again the Bible story; I see that a wonder in Jesus’ parables is that their teachings are timeless—eternal. God uses the stories, and methods, for repetition of message to continue engaging us, in all our human blindness, throughout our living history.
The Good Samaritan—compassionate, kind, merciful, a good neighbor that helps in the capacity of their abilities—is eternal.
I encountered him today.
[i] Luke 10: 23-37, Douay-Rheims Bible.