The waitress walked with some difficulty. Her shoes were
over-sized around her toes, and the crepe soles hinted the shoes were
orthotically designed to fit just her feet. Her eyes were large and extended,
walleyed. Her complexion was mottled and lined. I guessed her age to be 60-ish.
Gnarled hands and knuckles informed the world this was a sufferer of arthritis.
Yet she waitressed, carrying heavy platters, trays of hot food to far off
tables and booths. Countless trips to and from the beverage center added to her
agonies.
Yet when she approached me for my order, her mouth formed a
smile as big as the restaurant. Hospitality was her middle name yet her body
was not designed for this job. Clearly she labored through her shift in pain
and physical awkwardness.
I ate at this restaurant nearly every day, sometimes twice a
day. It was half way between my apartment and the L station in Oak Park , Illinois
The waitress didn’t last long in this atmosphere. Carol
chided her on being slow and not very attractive. But then the work didn’t
require attractive, did it? No, just diligence, tolerance, and a high threshold
for pain.
I remember being impressed by this waitress the first time I
met her. So impressed I wrote a poem about her spirit and inner beauty. In
those days I wrote some poetry; I was a new college grad, commuting to the Loop
in Chicago .
Living alone with my family in New
York , I was lonely. And ungainly in my youth.
Unknowing, too, in my understanding of the world. But I was aware of beauty in
places, things and people.
A short time later Martin Luther King. Jr. would be
assassinated and I would be moved to enter seminary. It was 1968 and America was deeply disturbed by civil strive
over civil rights as well as broad unrest over the war in Viet Nam .
Flower Power and Hippies, pot and free sex, Haight-Ashbury and Woodstock – those were the names in the news
in those days. Turmoil and smiles, however. Question marks everywhere and
lively chats at the water cooler and cocktail lounge.
Unrest may describe a person or an era or a clash of
movements and ideology. But unrest is also a clue to an inner person wanting to
emerge. Some power tingles and twinges the consciousness and the individual
begins to express feelings and ideas. From this inner sense comes a power to
say, think or do something different than what he has experienced in the past.
This emergent inner person is the power within each of us.
We become aware we can do more than what we have been doing. We stretch and
move in ways unfamiliar.
Such is the way we slowly grow into mature, conscious
persons. We begin to think in ways that push forward ideas and commitment to
action. We realize the world is a place, that people fill the places, and
people make things happen. News is
mostly made by people acting within their spaces. Those acts gather into
movements as more people join in similar actions. A trend line forms and
history takes a shape.
Thus people, individuals and groups, do things and develop a
form of power from those actions. They are expressing a power from within. They
are doing, thinking, acting. The world is changed a little bit from this. And
later, probably much later, a historical note documents the happening.
Such is the power of an individual. Such is the power within
each of us. To do the work of the world, form communities, help one another,
support causes large and small, and support governments and national actions.
We make a difference. More so if we are aware we are doing so.
Education comes from this inner power. so too, charity,
church, entrepreneurial risk taking, writing, artistic expression and so much
more.
When asked ‘what can I do?’ Much. From the inner person, the
person within, the power within. Each of us.
The meaning and worth of life is often found only from the
power within. It deserves exploration and discovery.
How well is your power within?
April 8, 2015
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