The Boy Sitting Next to Me

By Edmond Sichrovsky

This should be easy, I thought as I prepared to enter high school. I didn’t expect to have any problems making friends or interacting with my classmates. Unfortunately, my confidence was shattered on the very first day of school, when I met the boy seated next to me in class.

Sean was about my height but twice my weight. He was careless in his studies, never studied for exams, and yelled and cursed at teachers and students alike. He bragged endlessly about the violent computer games he played, and their influence was evident in his angry, destructive behavior. I quickly started wishing I didn’t have to sit next to him.

Weeks passed, and Sean seemed to go from bad to worse. He failed nearly every exam, got into fights daily with other classmates, and made no friends. I did my best to be polite but kept my distance.

One day at lunch hour, the seat beside Sean was the last vacant one in the cafeteria. I reluctantly sat down, and we got to talking. During the short conversation that followed, I found out that Sean’s father had died when he was very young, and that his mother worked long hours on a night shift. Consequently, he was home alone most evenings and only got to spend time with her on weekends.

I was ashamed of my harsh judgmental attitudes and determined to reach out to Sean, even though that went against my natural inclinations.

At first, my attempts were only met with mocking refusals and deriding curses. I learned that Sean had been the brunt of ruthless bullying in the past, so it seemed that in order to protect himself, he had developed a very hard and unfeeling exterior. It was a struggle to include him whenever we picked teams, and it was tough trying to befriend him when my efforts were only rewarded with snide remarks. I was often tempted to get angry and wondered if he was worth my trouble.

As the months went by, however, Sean gradually grew friendlier. Then one morning, over four months after that initial conversation in the cafeteria, Sean insisted on pairing up with me for a class activity. I was shocked. “You’re always saying you never want to see me again,” I told him.

“That’s not true!” he replied, smiling broadly. “You’re my only friend—the one person who cares about me. I want us to always be friends.”

That day, I not only gained a friendship that is ongoing, but I also discovered a precious truth: Regardless of how a person acts, looks, or behaves, everyone wants and needs love and acceptance. Beneath the rocky surface of a person’s hard exterior is often a bud waiting to blossom. Kind words and loving deeds are to human hearts what sunshine is to flowers. It can take days, weeks, or sometimes even months or years for the results of our efforts to be rewarded, but one day that person will blossom.

When Jesus said to “love your neighbor,”1 He wasn’t just talking about the person living next door. He wants us to share His love with anyone who needs our attention and care, whether it's the postman, the cleaning lady, the clerk at the counter, or the school bully sitting next to us.

The Power of a Peach

Tom’s division had been captured by the Italian army, and he and his fellow soldiers brought to Italy. Their captors paraded them through the streets and did their best to publicly humiliate them. Passersby joined in, taunting them, spitting at them, and venting their anger and resentment.

Suddenly, from among the jeering crowd, “a young girl stepped out, stuffed a peach into my hand, and then darted away before I could thank her,” Tom recounted. “It was the most delicious peach I had ever eaten.”

The veteran was well into his seventies, but his eyes sparkled as he told the tale of this Italian girl who had shown him kindness during a time of deep hatred and enmity between the two warring countries. In his hour of shame and despair, this nameless girl defied social pressure to reach out with a simple, sincere gift of compassion. She looked beyond his status as a soldier of an enemy country and saw him as a hurting human being in need of kindness. He remembered that peach through the tough years that followed as the war slowly drew to an end, and later whenever he needed strength to hold on to hope, to leave the hurt and pain of the war behind, and to start a new life.

She probably thought little of her deed; it was “only” a peach, after all. She probably never dreamed that he would cherish her benevolence for the rest of his life, and that the story would be featured in a documentary that has probably inspired others to pass this story on.

May we make peace by sharing “peaches” of love and mercy, even when it is risky or unconventional, for the fruit—the weary souls strengthened, the sad hearts gladdened, the lonely ones loved—is well worth the cost.

Les Miserables

Victor Hugo’s literary classic Les Misérables tells the story of Jean Valjean, whose already difficult life is brought down by one lone decision when he steals a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s starving children. As a consequence, he spends the next 19 years in the notorious Bagne of Toulon prison. Unable to find work after his release because he is an ex-convict, Valjean begs at the home of the bishop of Digne, who feeds him and gives him a bed for the night. But Valjean, overcome by despair at what seems an impossibly bleak future, yields to temptation, steals some of the bishop’s silver, and slips away in the night.

He doesn’t get far, however, before he is arrested with the silver and hauled back to face the bishop. Knowing what will happen to Valjean if he is convicted a second time, the kind bishop takes a chance on Valjean and tells the police, “I gave him the silver.”

Valjean is free from the legal consequences of his action, but not yet from his bad habits. After he steals yet again, he is driven to another point of decision, and this time he repents, and from that moment on he is a changed man. He goes through more upheavals and faces more tough decisions in the years that follow, but he remains true to the new course God has helped him chart.

Les Misérables is a moving portrayal of the redeeming power of God’s love, but it also illustrates how our lives are shaped by our decisions. Even seemingly small decisions can be far reaching. How can we ensure that we make right decisions? The only way is to involve God in the decision-making process, because He alone knows what’s best. He wants to see us make good choices and is always there to back us up when we do. The smartest decision we can make is to ask for His help.

3 Cups of Tea

By Alexander Sichrovsky

Right after graduating from high school, two friends and I decided to travel around the western Mediterranean. It was 1969, and the streets of Europe were filled with young people roaming and searching for meaning in their lives. We took a train to Naples in southern Italy, then an overnight ferry to Tunis. Next, we traveled along the North African coast, hitching rides with local trucks and cars.

On one occasion, we were stranded in the middle of nowhere with no town or village in sight. When night fell, we decided to go to the beach and roll out our sleeping bags on the warm sand for the night.

Early the next morning, as we were packing up our stuff, an elderly man walked slowly toward us. Looking over, I saw a tiny straw hut a little further up the beach; we must have missed it in the darkness of the previous night. The shabbily dressed man was carrying a tray in his hand. He must have something for sale, I thought. However, once he got closer, I saw that he was bringing us three steaming hot cups of peppermint tea.

I was just an eighteen-year-old, fresh out of high school, immature and inexperienced, yet I was deeply moved. Why would this old man, who probably barely survived out there, make tea to offer to strangers? He had no idea who we were and had never met us, but he considered it his duty to show hospitality.

We gratefully drank the sweet, fragrant tea and tried to think of a way to repay the man’s kindness. To offer money would have been an insult, but digging around in our backpacks, we found some cans of food which we presented to him as a return gift. We couldn’t talk much, as his French was poor and ours was even worse, so after thanking him, we took our leave and headed back to the road. The three of us were largely silent for the rest of the morning, as our thoughts were still on the kind man and the deep impression he had made on us.

He had much less than we did, but he had willingly shared the little he had. We were from different countries and spoke different languages, but concern and a giving heart had bridged it all.

The Courage to Be Kind

By Olivia Bauer

One sunny afternoon roughly seventy years ago, a young girl and her friends were watching through the mesh of a barbed wire fence as a group of men played football [soccer], enjoying the excitement of the game and the skill of the players. Suddenly, a kick sent the ball in an arc over the fence, and it landed near the children.

"It'd be great to have a ball to play with," one of the boys remarked. "Let's keep it."

But a girl disagreed. "It's not right for us to keep it," she insisted, throwing the ball back over the fence.

This simple gesture of kindness and integrity took place in the heart of Germany in the early 1940s, during World War II. The players were British prisoners of war, interned in a camp on the outskirts of town. Some of the girl's friends grumbled. After all, the players were prisoners—why should they have a ball when the children didn't?

Kindness takes thoughtfulness, effort, and time. It also takes courage. Courage to stand alone on an issue. Courage to give, especially when one doesn't have much. Courage to say no to indifference. Courage to act according to what one knows is right—especially when the right choice seems so obvious that "surely someone else with more time and resources will notice and do something about it."

There is strength of character in kindness—the moral and mental strength to step out, to give, to believe, to persevere, to be true to one's convictions, even when it means enduring challenges or paying a price. These are the kindnesses that leave a lasting impression.

It's been nearly three quarters of a century, but there may yet be survivors of that summer scene—and if so, I imagine they might remember my grandmother, the village girl who returned a football.

The Cleaning Lady

During my second year of nursing school our professor gave us a quiz. I breezed through the questions until I read the last one: "What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?" Surely this was a joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank.

Before the class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our grade. "Absolutely," the professor said. "In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello." I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned our cleaner's name was Dorothy.—Joann C. Jones

Image Credits:

The Boy Sitting Next to Me:

Image 1: Kirimatsu via DeviantArt.com; used under CC license. Image 2: Flamespeedy via DeviantArt.com; used under CC-NC license.

The Power of a Peach

Image 1: National Geographic; used under Fair Use guidelines.

Image 2: Patrick via Flickr; used under Creative Commons-Attribution-Non Commercial license.

Stolen Silver

Images courtesy of http://lesmiserablesshoujocosette.wikia.com/wiki/The_Silver_Candlesticks.

Three Cups of Tea

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The Soccer Ball

Image is in public domain

The Cleaning Lady

Image designed by Iconicbestiary via Freepik.com