My 3 New Friends

A Course in Miracles teaches us that “Every encounter is a holy encounter.” Wherever we go, whomever we meet, there’s an opportunity for a loving exchange. Once receptive to this concept, my life became much happier. I found that love was all around me. Even more important, that love flowed from within me.

Last Monday was a bonus day. My first holy encounter occurred when a fellow Toastmaster and I started speaking after class. Leaving the elevator, she told me about her escape from Cuba. She’d suffered several arrests and was denied her college degree because she went against the system. She managed to escape and was elated to live in America. “Here, you can say what you want and become what you want. In Cuba, food is rationed, and you get arrested for criticizing the government. Everything there is oppressive. The United States is the greatest country. People here don’t know what a dictator is. Everyone in Cuba is poor. I love my life here,” she shared with tears of passion. Her openness made me feel close to her and evoked the desire to support her journey.

Later that day, after dropping off my car for some detail work, I spent a few moments talking with the shop’s owner. He, too, had escaped Cuba. It took years of migrating through several countries (Nicaragua, Panama, Costa Rica), where he saved “every penny” and accumulated enough money to land at the U.S. border and later start a business in West Palm Beach. After a couple of years, he was able to bring his seven-year-old daughter to live with him. His story of fulfilling his dream deeply touched me.

When leaving his shop, I took an Uber. Getting in a car with a stranger always makes me anxious because of a previous traumatic experience. I have a heightened sense of anxiety, and my mind goes wild with fears of something terrible happening. Fortunately, (due to the Course), I can move through that fear and know that “I am safe wherever I go” if I call on love to guide me. When I got in the car, I soon relaxed over a friendly chat. The driver shared his gratitude for his life and family. His childhood was difficult, but his mother instilled good values in him despite “living in the projects.” Hard work took him out of those circumstances, and even after retirement, he kept an entrepreneurial spirit and became an Uber driver. He also talked about his wife (a 30-year marriage) and his children and grands. His daughter and spouse were afraid to start a family because there were six sets of twins on both sides of the family. His love of our country seemed as great as his love of family. He felt common sense was important and sometimes lacking in our country’s leadership. Exiting the Uber, I told him it was my best ride ever and backed up my words with a generous tip. His light and smile emanated as bright as his pearly-white teeth.

Loving is in our nature. We often get swept up in life’s stressors and forget the gestures that make us happiest. I was so grateful that I wasn’t in a task-oriented mindset on this particular day and could take the time to do something far more critical — care enough to share time. These three people could have remained strangers — objects merely to obtain goals. These “holy encounters” as human-to-human, with warmth and connection without the mental traps of fear and judgment, were lovely. I wish I could be this way all the time. But it’s okay. I’ve learned from another course that spiritual growth means “Progress, not perfection.” I’m grateful to know that I always have a choice: love or not love. I want to choose love.

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