The following story appeared in my local paper this morning in the daily column "Character Counts" which is authored by Michael Josephson:

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By Michael Josephson
December 28, 2005

One of my favorite stories tells of a man I'll call Al who was rushing home excited to tell his wife about a $1,000 bonus check he'd unexpectedly received from work.

Before he got to his car, a desperately sad looking woman with a baby asked him for a few dollars. She said her child had leukemia and was dying. He reached into his pocket for some loose bills and accidentally pulled out his bonus check. He looked at the check for a moment and then at the woman's baby and spontaneously endorsed it to her, saying, "Use this to do what you can for your baby."

When Al told his family what he did, they were not pleased. His wife said, "I can't believe you gave some stranger our money," and his teenage son chided Al for being naive. Al was hurt but simply said, "I just thought she needed it so much more than we did."

A week later, his son came to him with an "I told you so" look on his face. He showed Al a newspaper article about a woman with a baby who had been arrested for scamming people in the area.

"This is the lady you gave the money to, isn't it?" the son asked disdainfully.

"Yes," the father replied, as he smiled broadly.

"What are you smiling about?" the son demanded. "You were cheated! She made a fool out of you."

"Don't you see?" Al replied: "This is wonderful news. It means the baby is not dying."

Overwhelmed with affection and admiration for her husband, Al's wife said: "Your dad will earn other bonuses. Just be thankful we have each other, our health and a truly good man we can all be proud of."
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After reading this I was overcome by emotion for reasons I've been seeking throughout the day, and what I've come up with is this...The spirit of the current season, at least what it's suppose to be all about, was contained in this short story of a man leading with his heart and not his fear. He realized all the money in the world is worthless if we disregard truth when it collides with our wants. The woman may have been a scam artist, but the truth of the moment as far as the man saw it through the portals of his heart was far greater than anything he would have purchased with his bonus. May we all have the good fortune to recognize our own "truths" in a more regular fashion this coming year!

It seems to me that murder is murder, regardless of whether it is at the hands of a single individual or at the hands of the state. If God is all powerful, all knowing and all wise, why is it that human beings occasionally take matters into their own hands and decide the moment of a fellow soul's passing under the guise of legality??? This seems to be more a matter of convenience than anything else, and not truly driven by the mentality of 'right vs. wrong'. A little story...

Somewhere far away, buried deep in unknown mountains was an unnamed lake, a lake so deep and blue that a single glance at its tranquility could melt the hardest of souls. A school of small fish lived in this lake and spent their days swimming to and fro, always in perfect unison as if they were of one mind and one body.

One day a fish near the center of the school began swimming erratically and bumping continuously into the fish around him. This individual's reckless behavior quickly escalated into an apparent act of random and senseless violence. The other fish were utterly stunned as none of them had ever witnessed anything like this in their own short lives.

One by one, the other fish began to push back, at first in self-defense, but soon out of an anger spurned by their own sense of self-righteousness. "How dare this rebel upset the peace and tranquility of the school, how dare he threaten those around him"! Innately, the signal was sent to teach this individual a lesson and to protect the school at all costs as no one fish had the right to hurt another. The specter of violence swept throughout the school and soon most of the other fish were doing their best to join the fray, nipping at the renagade's fins and slamming into his small body. Soon the rebel was vanquished, his life ebbing away in brief convulsions of something misunderstood, yet his body continued to move rapidly through the school as if carried forward by some evil and unseen magic. The other fish moved aside and watched his body pass as they felt the short-lived ecstasy of the battle slip away, soon replaced by something new and quite uncomfortable. What now?

What the other fish had been unable to see as they pummeled one of their own right out of existence was that the rebel fish had become caught on a fisherman's line and was simply fighting for his life! The school had reacted to the appearance of things, and had not stopped to consider other possibilities.

We never know what "line " someone may be dancing on in this life, yet we humans are often quite quick to pass judgment and make condemnations about another's actions, often with lasting consequences. There certainly "appears" to be great evil in the world, but sometimes a little empathy will curb the rush to judgment and allow fresh perspectives to emerge. A little grace goes a long way in this world...Go in peace!