A Pebble In The Pond

This blog entry is not about something that happened at the Coffee Shop, but it IS about coffee… and it brought back some childhood memories, so I’m going with it.

When I was a young lad, too many moons ago, I used to spend my summers at my grandfather’s farm, He had a very large farm pond, and I used to like to throw a rock as far out into the pond as I could and see if the ripples would make it back to me. Sometimes they did, and sometimes they didn’t.

During my high school years, I learned in Physics class, that for every action there is a reaction, and the teacher likened that physical law to dropping a pebble in a pond, and the ripples in the pond were  the “reaction” to the “action” of dropping the pebble.

Recently I learned that sometimes you never know how far and wide those “ripples” will go.

While listening to the “Bob and Sheri Show”, a syndicated morning radio show, Sheri read a news article from the newspaper serving Amesbury, Massachusetts.

It seems a young lady pulled up to the drive-thru window at the local Dunkin Donut shop. As she paid for her coffee, the person taking her money asked, “How’s your day going?” She quickly replied, “It’s really going pretty poorly. I just lost my job.” After pausing for a few seconds, she then continued, “You know, my husband will probably get mad at me for doing this, but I’m going to do it anyway. Here’s some money to pay for the person’s coffee that’s in the car behind me.” She then took her coffee and drove off.

She had dropped a pebble into the pond.

What made this story hit the newspaper was that the next car in line, after finding out his/her coffee had been paid for, did the same thing.

This was the ripple in the pond… and this “ripple” continued for 55 cars… 55 CARS… until there were no more cars in the line. WOW. That blew my mind with joy!

Sometimes we see the results of an act of kindness right away… and sometimes we never do see just how far that act of kindness reaches out to others.

Today… I don’t know how yet, but today I’m going to drop a pebble into the pond of humanity. I don’t know how far it will go… or if it will go very far at all… but that doesn’t matter. I’m going to do it anyway.

Want to join me?