Conscious Choice: The Kindness of Strangers

November 2003

The Kindness of Strangers

by Terry Loncaric

It’s easy to say we love the planet, we respect humanity, and we embrace equality. Those are all great liberal platitudes that feel good when they roll off the tongue. But to really extend ourselves to a stranger is the ultimate sacrifice. Look at Blanche Dubois. She told us in "Streetcar" she came to count on the kindness of strangers and we just dismissed her as a sad, pathetic, lonely, character.

But maybe Blanche really had the right idea.

We live in a world where it becomes easy to bolt our doors and lock our hearts to others we don’t know. We shut down emotionally because it is our automatic response. We were taught to mistrust strangers. We forget all of us on this planet are really sharing one large home.

To deal with strangers takes time. To listen to others takes effort. Yet, in the kindness of strangers exists the greatest possibility for grasping our true potential for loving one another. It’s easy to justify actions when we really are not part of them. We live in a strange isolation in which we start to believe we are the only members of the global village. Maybe it is true that we have become a nation — and a world — of wary, sad, strangers.

I really believe we were put here for a spiritual purpose, not just to achieve all the superficial markers of success but to find our deeper connection with other humans. Occasionally, we feel a glimmer of that divine purpose in what Blanche would call "the company of strangers."

I remember one night driving in a neighborhood I rarely visit. I lost my point of reference, and began to panic, when I realized I was driving on fumes, and horribly lost. Of course, I am old enough to know you should always have a full tank of gas and adequate cash when you are driving by yourself in a strange neighborhood. I was in just too much of a hurry that day to get to the bank and had left my credit card at home.

Scraping together every last coin I had dropped under my car seat, I cashed in my pennies, dimes, and nickels at the local grocery store, thinking I would muster enough funds to drive back home. I found the nearest gas station. A kind, young clerk with long dreadlocks stopped reading his college textbook when I told him my pump number. He looked concerned when he saw I only had $3 dollars, and I was still so far from home. "You may not make it home on $3," he revealed. "Let me put $10 in your gas tank and don’t even worry about paying me back," he said.

I was overwhelmed that a stranger would do something so remarkably kind. Even though this man did not live in my neighborhood he cared about my safety. Of course, I profusely thanked him; if I could have broken through the locked glass window, I would have hugged him. He could have given me a brick of gold and I would not have felt any happier than I did at that moment.

That beautiful act of kindness reminded me there are still people who care enough about strangers to reach out and extend their hearts. That is not something we see every day, but when we do, it truly touches our soul.

We are usually in such a hurry, we find it easier to talk over one another than to really listen with heart-felt compassion. Look at all the couples who stop talking; the kids who sit dazed in front of their computers; the parents who would rather flip on the TV than have a real conversation with their children. How can we expect to notice the pain of strangers when we can’t even listen with our hearts to the people we love?

Instead, we become lost in the drone of our own thoughts. We fail to see the stranger in distress. It is astonishingly easy to pass up the shivering, homeless man; to look past the frightened woman at the gas station; or to even ignore the gaunt, sad face of a child who stares at us on the evening news as his country is being ripped apart by bombs. Indeed, to care for a stranger invokes our greatest spiritual calling — to understand and connect with our very humanity by reaching out in Love.

Terry Loncaric is a Chicago freelance writer specializing in spirituality, travel, the arts, and social issues.

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