Hope in the Kindness of Strangers

I got stung by a yellow jacket and it was totally worth it.

The pain from the yellow jacket’s sting was vibrant—like, “technicolor wow!” vibrant.

I was hiking on a beautiful trail along the river, and with no warning, the little sucker got me right on my ankle. When I saw another hiker approaching my way, I made it a point to warn them, but—

They beat me to it.

Apparently, it’s “peak season” for yellow jacket nests on this trail, and before I could warn them about my own encounter, they warned me about two more trouble spots for which I needed to watch out. They said that one of them would be easy to identify by the nature conservancy’s warning signs (but they warned that if I could read them, then it’d probably be too late). They said the other would be marked by a bright orange hat in a rhododendron bush that some kind soul had sacrificed for the good of us all. 

Despite my swelling ankle, what really moved me was that every single person I met between myself and those upcoming danger zones also warned me, just as I warned them about the ones they needed to avoid in front of them. I probably had a dozen encounters, and in every one of them we all looked out for each other. We knew nothing about each other’s backgrounds, political leanings, religions, or potentially conflicting differences, but we all made it a priority to keep each other safe from harm. 

I couldn’t help but reflect that kindness seemed to be our default, and I was reminded of a quote by the famous spiritual teacher, Ram Dass, who said, 

“We’re all just walking each other home.” 

Despite all of the vast challenges and divisive conflicts in our world today, it can be easy to forget that when we greet each other on similar paths, we tend to look out for each other, and I find this to be wonderfully hopeful.