* …causing ripples

From one of Mother Teresa’s volunteers, Mary wrote:  “I had been volunteering at Kalighat and felt such closeness with the people there. It was such a privilege to serve in the home for the dying, to contact the poor in that way, to have crossed the enormous divide between East and West, between cultures, between classes, and to actually touch someone at the level you are able to do there. When I returned from India to London I went into shock—I noticed how things were so much more hand-made, sterile, organized. But I tried to carry on contacting the poor here although it was harder. For instance, every day when I walked to work I would pass a homeless man under the viaduct. One day I noticed another person leave a thermos flask and some sandwiches in the morning on his way to the office and then pick up the flask on his way back. So I thought I’d add an orange—I did this every day and just said ‘Hello,’ and by doing this I felt a spiritual contact was made with the sisters—I don’t feel the divide of countries or cultures so much now. As Mother Teresa says, ‘We’re just pebbles being thrown into the sea and causing ripples,’ and one ripple can be made by one small act of service, and that is the start of many, isn’t it?” ~ from ‘Mother Teresa a Simple Path’, Ballantine Books, 1995 p.159