Why practice random acts of kindness?

I don't care what anyone says. These are challenging times. There are people sleeping under black plastic garbage bags and carrying their worlds in shopping carts. Children wear bruises and forget how to laugh. Anxiety swirls around our minds like discarded newspapers with headlines that tell us to remain on indefinite alert. We are in a recession of the heart, moving away from what terrifies us, away from chaos, away from random acts of violence. We are simultaneously clutching at each other and moving away.

            When I was seven years old, my immigrant  grandmother told me that she was surprised to find so many people in this country giving from the wrong place. 

"When you give from here," she said, pointing to her solar plexus," it's like keeping a ledger book, like  trading: 'I give you 3, so you give me 3. I sweep the floor so you carry the bundles. ' You give your soul away when you give like that. Giving is supposed to be from here," she said, pointing a long bony finger to the center of her chest. " When you give from your heart, you're not trying to get anything back. There is no owning or being owed. You give because you want to give. You give because it fills you up. Your heart will never run out because the more you give in this way, the fuller you will be." 

            I know it's time to follow my grandma's advice and practice  this kind of giving when the news has been particularly bad, or when a friend is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, or when I find myself shrugging, depleted, exhausted, pissed off.  I'll go to the local grocery store and slip a five dollar bill into the cashier's hand so she can apply it to the next person in line.  Or maybe I'll bake cookies and drop them off at the food bank. It feels best when the recipient doesn't know who did the giving or where the gift came from.  Sometimes, I hide so I can watch his or her face. 

            In a time when so many people feel powerless and unrecognized, when miserable things happen to wonderful people, there are moments when  we must stomp my feet in indignation  and outrage. But to balance all that, it's important to remember all those people who have sustain our souls and remember  that each of us is the culmination of an infinite number of improbable gifts from myriad nameless sources. Practicing random acts of kindness cracks the tough shell  that begins to grow around my heart each time I watch the news or experience another's suffering. The circumference of who I am begins to swell full and ripe, and a longing to reach, to risk what can be possible sprouts.