What would you do if you are walking down the street and a man comes up to you, covered in many scabby wounds and a dirty plastic bag, who looks more or less clean, but you can tell by the way he looks that he doesn’t seem to be doing too well.
This man walked towards me and was overjoyed to see my dog and started babbling something I didn’t understand.
On closer inspection, I noticed a clip around his arm in the hospital.
A few years ago, I would have tried to avoid this man, maybe even ignore him, but to my surprise I stopped.
He petted my dog, asked me something, but since we couldn’t understand each other (something had happened to his diction), we just did “thumbs-up” to each other.
And then he hugged my dog for a long time and was very happy about it.
But the most important thing was that I saw myself as an observer at that moment.
I could see that I was so happy about their moment together and that I was no longer behaving as I had done in the past in such situations – ignoring and trying to quickly distance myself from this very strange-looking person.
I didn’t even feel like hurrying away.
It was extremely strange looking at myself.
I looked at them and it occurred to me that perhaps this hug with the dog was the highlight of the day or the next for this man, where he could experience a sincere and pure, unjudged contact with another being.
The purest form of love, which the dog was happy to share with him.
I was proud of myself and happy for the man.
I was proud that I was getting to a place where everyone is exactly who they are, and that doesn’t give someone the right to take away moments that could be a support for them to move forward in a normal judgmental human interaction.
I suppose that’s one of the nice moments when you notice the virtue of ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’ rearing its head within oneself.
It was a moment when I realised that years of working with myself, with my shadow sides, with my past hurts, with my repressed emotions and everything else, had led to a purer human part, where man was just man and dog was just dog.
Just the way they were, with no expectations, no how-are-they-judged.
Just one beautiful is-just-as-it-is moment in life.
Photo of my Mounty 😊
