Commentary on ACIM Lesson 352

© 2010 Rev. David Seacord

Like most self-service fuel pumps these days, drive-up filtered water vending kiosks are normally double-sided, so it's normal to be temporary neighbors with a stranger while getting water. This 'strangerness' is pretty much a function of our wheeled society, which gives each of us much more exposure to the mass of our populous presence than was the case in 'simpler times', and, while it still would be considered a bit rude to ignore a known neighbor whom you ran into at the market, it's the norm these days that 'it's weird' if you do speak to a stranger at a water kiosk.

If you live with any commitment to being self-expressed, I expect you probably have internal unspoken conversations with (or about) the people with whom you share these kind of moments. I do. They are often assessment based, but of course I admit I have no real idea if there is any validity to any of my projections or assumptions, especially if I never speak to them....

Yesterday evening I went to the local water kiosk, where the price for the water is fifty cents for five gallons. I had 24 empty plastic gallon water jugs, and a half empty glass gallon jug which I keep in the Sidekick as a personal drinking supply. This presented a minor conundrum, as (if you do the math) I realized I would be buying 25 gallons but only be able to consume 24 1/2 gallons.

Waste. A half gallon of wasted pure water was the issue. What to do? Squirt it out on the ground? Let it stay in the hose and let the machine figure out somehow that I didn't want it? Try to drink it like from a hose or water fountain? And the best idea: find somebody to give it to.

As the idea occurred, a car drove up to the other side of the kiosk, and a kind of gruff outside/soft inside blue-collar laborer type gentleman emerged. He was partially hidden by the kiosk building... I only saw about half his body, and I couldn't see what he was filling at all.

I just kept filling my own containers, but I also was waiting for a 'non-wierd opportunity' to initiate a conversation. None occurred for several minutes, and finally I was done. And I had a half gallon of water still owed me, AND the pump was operating. Moment of truth--- mind--- put up or shut up.

I called over to the guy, very directly--- "Hey, want another half gallon?", expecting to be declined. But instead, he answered with his body, swinging a 6 gallon water container into view, and taking my hose out of my hand, then draining my remaining half gallon into his jug. "Perfect!" was all he said as he handed it back to me.

I knew exactly how he felt. I had once owned one of those 6 gallon jugs, and it was always 'a pisser' to not be able to fill up that last gallon. So I had offered him exactly what he wanted.... enough to fill up his container to full.

The thing about it is that I almost let the automatically-running mind-program about not speaking to strangers that I was listening to inside my head stop it all from happening. Yet that was just my head. And because I didn't let my head stop it, I got to discover that God/Source/Intelligence etc was in a perfect dance with me... down to sending by a guy who actually wanted my extra half gallon at the exact time I am at the kiosk. I figure that it was a pretty cool demonstration that 'it's all covered' is true down to 'the minutia degrees'..... like maybe nowhere is it not so.... So I thought you might think it cool too.

Namaste,

David

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Lesson 352

Judgment and love are opposites. From one
Come all the sorrows of the world. But from
The other comes the peace of God Himself.

Forgiveness looks on sinlessness alone, and judges not. Through this I come to You. Judgment will bind my eyes and make me blind. Yet love, reflected in forgiveness here, reminds me You have given me a way to find Your peace again. I am redeemed when I elect to follow in this way. You have not left me comfortless. I have within me both the memory of You, and One Who leads me to it. Father, I would hear Your Voice and find Your peace today. For I would love my own Identity, and find in It the memory of You.