Life is hard and sometimes, beyond hard. My best friend always says, “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle,” but truthfully, sometimes I think, “Hey buddy!!!!! I’ve had all I can take!!!! No more, ok!!!!!!” Whether you believe in a deity or not – do you ever feel like that too?
I love the idea of angels. They may exist, they may not – but if they do, I think their jobs must be easier than ours. They worry about the long-term, while most of us worry about getting through today and into tomorrow. I think that Earth itself would be the place that angels would fear to tread. All of us are capable of such incredible lightness of being – and at the same time – such devouring darkness.
Human angels, on the other hand, are what gives me, personally, strength in times that are difficult. People who give without expecting anything in return – people who bring you joy just by walking into a room – and people who give of themselves to help someone else. Wow. These kinds of people really are under-appreciated, but thinking of some of the ‘angels’ I’ve met in my life is what helps me get through the hard times. Kindness is so under-rated, but so… incredibly divine.
I’ve known a lot of human angels (even though some of them are only angels part-time). Can any human truly be an ‘angel’ all the time? To me, Saints are people who have changed the world for the better in a huge way – people like Gandhi, for example. Were Saints holy because they were always perfect, or were they Saints because they wrestled a bit with life’s unenviable choices? I’d hope for the latter, because if they were always perfect, I’d think less of them.
While growing up, I had three heroes: Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Martin Luther King, and Raoul Wallenberg. Dr. Kubler-Ross, because she chose to work with dying children and help them move on, Martin Luther King because he had a dream of peace and equality and worked to see it through, and Raoul Wallenberg, who was born rich but chose to give up his life to help save something like 20,000 Jewish people during World War II.
When I was younger, I imagined being like one of these people, although now I know better. Most of us have to deal with the here and now, and be angels in whatever small ways we can. In my opinion, an act of kindness, no matter how small it is, spreads like sunshine – helping to make the world a little easier for those struggling even more than we think we are.
Most of us won’t be remembered 100 years from now - but the thousands of small kindnesses we may show in our life time may make the here and now a little bit more bearable to a true world changer – someone incredible who may take their own inspiration from your one single act of empathy, kindness or charity. In this way, maybe we’re all world-changers? In this way, we’re all, just a bit, divine. Divinely ____ maybe, but divine nonetheless. :p
To the world-changers,
Rose
