29 February 2012

What Have I Done to Deserve This?

Last night I was honored to take part in a panel discussion on charity/giving across various faith/practice traditions.  Present were a Hindu priest, a Sikh priest, a rabbi, an imam, a pastor and myself. 

What an amazing group!  Each one was clearly a person of depth and commitment, each one had a story of selfless service to his respective community, and each one demonstrated in word and action that lowering of ego before something much, much bigger that marks, at least to my mind, the beginning of wisdom and compassion.

Who was I to be included among them?

The imam grabbed my hand as we stood for the group mugshot.  The Hindu priest and I stood face-to-face with hands palm-to-palm for a longer-than-perfunctory moment as we said goodbye. 

Once again, I felt like a thief, walking away with much more than I had brought to the event.  And for that, as for so many other things I can't begin to enumerate right now, I am utterly and profoundly, almost wordlessly, grateful.

No comments:

Post a Comment