It was a balmy April. I was rushing to pick up some soup from the Vietnamese restaurant in my neighborhood. My twin toddlers were home sick demanding pho. Approaching the restaurant door, I noticed a familiar indigent woman panhandling. She was a middle-aged black woman with a pretty face which had maintained a certain softness, despite the apparent harshness of her situation. We made eye contact. I smiled and gestured that I would give her something on the way out.
While inside, I noticed the woman had begun yelling. Her voice bellowed an uncontainable rage that sucked the air out of the space surrounding her. Hers was the profane language of degradation; it rushed out of her with the wild force of stampeding cattle who had just escaped the cages meant to imprison them. Out, out poured venom and hate and shame. It shocked me because in past encounters, her demeanor was usually calm, even serene, despite being tinged with a palpable sadness.
I paid the bill, collected my bag and went to her. “Are you okay? What happened?” I asked. She pointed at a white man sitting in a shiny new car. She said some words I couldn’t really make out about how he had disrespected her. I offered condolences and told her I was sorry to hear she had been offended. Then the most unexpected thing happened.
The woman collapsed into my arms and began weeping. I felt the weight of her suffering pressed up against my sternum. Her head hung limp, resting in the crook of my neck. She moaned and sobbed my shoulder wet with tears. What was I to do, but hold her, love her the best I could in this intimate, and unexpected moment between strangers. I kept whispering in her ear, “It’s okay. It’s okay honey. Let it out. Cry it out. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry...” all the while invoking Reiki wisdom for guidance and strength.
We stood there like this for some time. Her body, made limp by her lamentations, wilted against mine. As her crying began to wind down, and her breath made that panicked gasping sound it makes after a long bout of bawling, she lifted her head. I felt a chill run down my arm as her warmth receded and exposed my saturated shoulder. She wiped her eyes. I took a breath. I knew the twins were waiting. I knew I had to leave and there was nothing else I could do except maybe give a few dollars.
In that moment, I experienced a curious set of emotions which were hard to pinpoint. There was a sense of helplessness, but not exactly. I knew that I had given what I could; she was on her journey and I was on mine. I knew that I couldn’t bring her home or fix her or her situation. On the one hand, I was powerless; but on the other hand, I felt something else—a different type of power, one that had nothing to do with money or materialism.
In our embrace, I felt an epic force surging through us—from beyond the tops of our heads, out beyond the bottoms of our feet. It was as if a vortex of light and energy had opened, and a tornado of divine grace coursed through us and bound us together as one great beating heart. It was magnetic, pure and true. As peacefulness encased us and her dirge faded, an emptiness arose, and in that space, there were no words, no thoughts—just love, the mighty power of unconditional love.
May compassion lead us and deepen our innate capacity to love. May we find opportunities to hold a stranger in need. May we awaken our energy bodies and walk in the path of light. This is my prayer for us all.