The best gifts are unexpected ones. Yesterday I found myself in an old chapel in the town of Bruges, in Belgium. I was looking at some paintings of the Stations of the Cross when my attention was drawn away from them to a woman sitting on a chair. It was natural for my attention to be drawn thus, for she was exuding a gentle, warm glow – that glow. As I drew close, she rose from the chair. Her movement was pure grace, there was no mistaking the smooth, unhurried fluidity – it was that grace. Then something unexpected happened. She whispered in my ear, “Are you Andy?” Her voice, too, carried the warmth and softness – it was that voice.
I held her gently and looked into her eyes. Even then, it took a few seconds for me to identify her. She was an old friend, an intimate friend from several years ago. I had only known her in the country in which she had been born and lived most of her life, India. So meeting her after some years, unexpectedly in a chapel in Europe, the slowness of my recognition is, perhaps, understandable. However, the real reason it took me a while to identify her was that her whole energy, and with it her appearance, had changed. Whereas before she had still been bound by the human story, seeking earnestly but still with evident knots, now she was in a melted state – that melted state. Her whole being was resonating with a warm, soft, open tenderness towards the rest of existence. At least in the moment I met her, she had come home – to that home.
One’s own transformation is a benediction indeed. The best gift, though, is to witness the transformation of another.
