Good and Evil

Bee Gees Song of the Day: One More Look at the Night

I guess I've never been more on my own
And the thought of you makes me cry
'cause you made me feel like sunshine
There's a danger, you ain't forever
Watching the memory die

Interesting day today. I was exposed to both good and evil.

I think it started as far back as yesterday. I got a call from an old high school friend and in the course of the call, she admitted she had read my blog and had mentioned the Butterfly Effect blog that I had, for the most part, forgotten about.

Then earlier today, I went to subway for lunch. An old woman was standing outside Subway and she held up an index card. She alleged she could not speak the language. "I am a single mother of four children. I have no money for food. Please help me feed my children." Never faced with begging directly, I was moved and gave her money. I'm not telling you this to thank me and I'm not telling you this so you can tell me how irresponsible my action was. (She's just going to buy crack with it!") Berate me if you want. I did what I thought was right. I did it for the sisterhood, I did it for a single mom struggling to feed her kids; and even if it was for an old doxie trying to raise money to satisfy her pimp's drug addiction, I did it because I was moved enough to help her. I paid it foward. That was it, end of story.

As I walked into Subway I thought that maybe the cosmos would reward me. Maybe someone would give me a boat load of cash. Eh. Probably not. I promptly forgot about it.

Later in evening, I was on my way home from work. Truth be told, I was on my way to a fledgling meeting of the Legion of Mary at a neighboring parish. I had wanted to be there to support the new group, being an active member at my own parish. The roads were damp having rained intermittently throughout the day. And at 7:00 pm, it was dark out. I was on Route 7 headed west towards Leesburg at on a Friday evening. Traffic was typical; heavy.

My front driver's side tire went flat.

Guess I wasn't going to make the meeting.

I pulled over onto an exit ramp. At least I was out of traffic (or so I thought). I found my jack (my boys, only weeks before had shown me how to use it to change the oil in my car, so I had some familiarity). As I was jacking up the car, I was approached by an angel wearing the guise of a shirt and tie. "Need some help?"

"That would be great." We introduced ourselves, found the lug wrench, pulled out the donut and Scott started jacking up the car. "I'd like to think that if my wife were in the same situation, someone would help her." God Bless him.

Be warned friends. Satan and his legions were obviously released from hell this evening; the apocalypse is upon us in the form of crap hole drivers! Though we both had our hazard lights on, I shone the flashlight between Scott and traffic - Scott so he can see what he was doing and traffic, so that they could see that people were on the road. The actual turn off to the exit was 200 yards up the road. Go around folks, go around.

Can you believe that some of the demonic sons of pigs or jackals or mastiffs actually pulled onto the exit ramp and came within inches of hitting us? WTF? Does NO ONE in Northern Virginia get tested on the definition and clear message that HAZARD LIGHTS mean slow the bleep down? When they see people squatting down by a car tire, is it so HARD TO INTUIT that someone has a flat tire or car trouble and CAUTION should be observed?

Scott finished putting on the donut, gave me some advice about how fast to drive, how to get back home, and how far I could adequately drive on the spare. He put everything back in my trunk for me and we shook hands. He would take no money and just wished me luck.

I had done someone a kindness earlier today. In turn, a kindness was bestowed on me. In the past, whenever someone has done me a good turn, I remember them in my prayers. I can go for years asking God to bless them and their families. I will pray for Scott, I will pray for the aging mother of four, and I will pray for the dangerously stupid who populate the roads of Northern Virginia.

They may not know they are evil, but I do.

The Butterfly Effect

The butterfly effect is a phrase that encapsulates the more technical
notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory. Small variations of the initial condition of a nonlinear dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system. So this is sometimes presented as esoteric behavior, but can be exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill might roll into any of several valleys depending on slight differences in initial position.

Too obnoxious? How about:

Serial reciprocity:

This is a term used to represent the effect whereby the benefactor of a gift or service will in turn provide benefits to a third party. For instance, an artist supported by a patron may decide to serve as a patron after achieving financial success, thus passing the initial gift cyclically onwards to others.

Alright, alright. More widely known as:

Pay it forward

Pay it forward or paying it forward refers to repaying the good deeds one has received by doing good things for other unrelated people.

(all definitions can be found and studied in more depth on Wikipedia.

I went out to dinner last night with four dear friends. Three of us were divorced and the other was blissfully married, but not annoyingly so. We were meeting at a local Italian Ristorante. I was late to the party, but got there in time to enjoy a lovely already-allowed-to-breathe glass of red wine.

We had a wonderful time chatting about a variety of subjects. The first bottle of wine went down quickly and easily and another was ordered, a different vintage, a little “spicy”, and very well liked. The company was wonderful, the food was excellent, and the conversation lively. Great fun!

Suddenly and without warning we were hit head on by serial reciprocity! Someone “paid it forward”!

Upon bringing us the bill, Dan, our young waiter, explained that another guest had paid for one of our bottles of wine. Stunned by the gesture we looked about, saw no one we knew and so started grilling poor Dan relentlessly – “Who was it? Are they still here? Did she give a reason? Are you sure you don’t know her? Does she come here often? What did she look like? Did she leave a name? Where was she sitting?”

We learned that Dan did not know who she was, that she was no longer at the restaurant, Dan did not know her or recognize her as a frequent patron, she did not leave a name and she was sitting right behind us. She asked that we not be informed of her generosity until after she had left. The most telling piece of information was that she was a young woman with a series of tattoos on her arm. My three friends had all noticed her when she walked in and had each silently admired her body art. She sat in the booth behind us.

I am clearly too self absorbed to notice anything.

Dan admitted that never in his career in the food industry had he ever witnessed a true pay-it-forward moment where someone anonymously paid for a portion of someone’s meal. Having forced poor Dan to agree to call us if she ever came back in, we gave him a telephone number and turned the poor lad loose.

Excited speculation ensued.

Who was this nameless purchaser of wine? What was her motivation? Was she a wealthy socialite frequenting local eateries and gracing diners incognito? Was she amused at the sight of four middle aged women getting together for dinner on a Tuesday night and our animated chattering? Or was she touched by the quiet admiration of her arm décor and this was her way of saying thank you? Maybe someone just did something nice for her and she wanted to keep it going. I wonder if she sat in her car for a while watching and waiting to see our reaction to her kindness.

It is unlikely that we will ever find out the name of our anonymous benefactor. But the gesture was very sweet and we are determined that it will not be left at the door. We are determined, the next time we go out, to do something similar. To initiate a random act of kindness. And like the Butterfly Effect, perhaps the ripples of that act will broaden into something beautiful and astounding.

Or maybe it will brighten someone’s day. And that’s pretty beautiful and astounding.