The other day, I stood at the bus stop, waiting. A car pulled up. The window rolled down. I groaned. Someone was going to ask me for directions, and I hoped I could send them in more or less the right way. Two friends grinned back instead.
I waved, relieved. ‘Are you going into town?’ the driver called.
‘I am.’
‘Hop in. We’re going that way.’
The passenger blinked. ‘Are we?’ she said, in that tone of someone discovering her life plan had just been altered.
I pointed up the road. ‘The bus will be here in a minute.’
‘I know,’ said the driver. ‘We passed it. Hop in.’
So, I climbed in back, knowing they were headed in the wrong direction, and this time it wasn’t my fault. But as we sat and chatted, something important came up. Someone we all knew needed our support.
That fifteen-minute trip was just enough time. We came up with a plan. We would help this person in whatever way we could.
As my friends dropped me off and drove away, I wondered if they would make it back. They just might collect another waif. I marvelled at this driver who followed another kind of map, not based on location, but on her heart. I marvelled at the passenger, who embraced the adventure and laughed.
(photo by Gustavo Fring: pexels.com)
(adapted from an article and a talk I gave earlier this month)
