Leo writes:
At one of our True Storytelling evenings at The Dragon Sanctuary, I told the following story; surely one of the strangest and most magical things that’s ever happened to me.
Before I tell you this story, however, I think it’s important to emphasise that I really didn’t make this one up. Several times I’ve recounted this experience to people who splutter at the end, “wow, you really had me there. I thought that was a true story, but it can’t be, right?”
Well, it is….
About 25 years ago I had hit a real low point in my life. My grand ambitions had crumbled and my cherished plans had failed to materialise. I found myself washed up back home, aged thirty and living in a small flat in London, down the road from my parents.
Faced with so much failure on the material level I began to question my own inner values. After all, they were not proving to be such a great way of navigating the world.
In the depths of this self-doubt I had one of the most extraordinary encounters with another human being I’ve ever had. I will probably never know his name. We only met for an instant, but the impression he made on me has never left.
It happened one grey Saturday afternoon in Camden High Street. The pavements were swarming with people. At one point I just stopped walking and stared around me.
None of the people moving past me were known to me; I was in a sea of strangers. And yet at that moment a question struck me very deeply. What if I could look beneath the surface and see with eyes that revealed our common humanity?
Could I love everybody?
It was then that I saw him. He was a young guy, about my age, and he looked like he lived in a bus, or slept on the streets. His hair had been left uncombed for so long that it had matted into long hairy brown dreadlocks. And he was staring at me, hard.
We were no more than thirty metres from each other when I first spotted him and, although I was standing still, he was bearing down on me with a purpose. His eyes were bright, his face full of confidence, you could even say arrogance. And his eyes were locked on mine!
I found this pretty unnerving. I looked away, hoping that by the time I looked back he would be staring at someone else. But when I checked him again, he was still staring at me out, and he was getting closer all the time!
Oh man! This guy was going to do something weird with me; maybe he’d ask me for money or tell me some story about how he needed help. He’d decided I was his next sucker and I didn’t have much time to prepare myself. Soon we’d be face to face. My body started to tense up in anticipation.
His eyes were still gazing into mine as his face passed inches from me and he said the words,
“Of course you can!”
And with that he was gone. He had never stopped walking, and by the time I turned around to look for him he had disappeared into the crowd.
I stood there stunned. Like I said, it was the briefest of encounters, but the impression he made upon me has never left.
I’ve often wondered who he was. An angel? Some other kind of divine messenger? Or just a very tuned-in hippy who read my mind at thirty metres. Even that last possibility fills me with wonder – to have met someone for whom loving everybody was so commonplace an experience that merely to ask if it were possible was a joke.
And the impression has stayed with me not because of the wacky way it occurred. Rather, his words struck a deep chord in me. All my life I’ve had stunning moments of clarity wherein I realise that the deepest purpose of my life is to love and serve humanity. I am sure we all have that impulse deep inside us.
But what to do with that? Most of the big plans I’ve had for my life involve some grand expression of this urge. But plans are tricksy diversions that take us into the future, far away from the present moment, where all such giving must take place.
Lately I’ve been making my peace with that thundering urge, finding the courage to abandon the plan and stay with the longing, and allow it to express in simple, sometimes surprising ways. This longing is the energy that has brought humanity into being and is working through each of us for its ultimate fulfillment.
Can you tap into that? Can you express that in your life? Can you love everyone?
Of course you can!