don't blink

An elderly couple lives across the street from Claire and me. On pretty days, the old man sits in a lawn chair in the front yard and chills out. As I was headed out to Nashville on Tuesday, the man was getting settled in his chair and his little wife was rubbing sunscreen on his arms. I was running late, but figured a few minutes of interaction would be more worthwhile than worrying about hurrying. So, I wandered across the street to say hello and wish the old man a happy thanksgiving. He made sure I would be returning from Nashville and then asked, "Do you have a boyfriend?"
I replied, "No sir, I don't."
"Well, I sure wish I wasn't married. I'd be your boyfriend in a second!"
"I'd love that. Happy Thanksgiving."

Yesterday, I was walking around Radnor Lake, which is about 2 miles from my parents' home. It's my absolute favorite place to walk and yesterday was no exception. The trail was covered in yellow leaves. There were places where I couldn't even see the trail, just followed it through habit. And then, in this one clearing hundreds of yellow leaves were swirling through the air on the way to cover the ground. The lady walking near me said, "look, it's snowing leaves!" Indeed, it did look like a swirling snowstorm.

Yesterday, (later in the day)I was trying on a pair of shoes at the store and this crazy cute toddler just wandered over and put his hands in my lap and started climbing up. He had on a little Thanksgiving outfit and curly hair. I loved it and the mother was a bit embarrassed and said he doesn't normally do that with strangers.

Perhaps my thought in this entry is that I have such delightful tiny interactions with strangers and it saddens me that our world is becoming an increasingly dangerous place. Because I believe that most people are good and then the ones that are bad ruin it for the rest. Because I like meeting new people without fear and I like a toddler's ability to make new friends with such ease and I would love to help the woman on the side of the road with the broken down car. I'll be glad for heaven when it comes.

Yet, I know that we are all human and we all make choices. I have lied before, I have made bad choices. I wonder if we are all capable of evil. I wonder if I am capable of evil. I wonder what leads us to make the choices that we do, for better or worse.