I’m not so good sometimes at being someone else’s “water”.

I’ve had my moments….said the right thing at the right time….made the move that saved the day….but for the most part, I just blunder through and sometimes leave some carnage in my wake.

The thing about that is that sometimes we don’t understand what ineffectual word of kindness is going to take root and bloom later on someplace different down the road.

We don’t know what is going to matter to someone else….or when it’s going to matter.

I think back to some of the offhand words of encouragement that I carry with me…things that were never meant to be “words of wisdom”….just comments that were thrown out…observations about something that I did or said or made.

I carry these things with me.

Somehow, they usually end up having a little more power than the unkind things that people have said to me or about me.

I think about the injuries…but I remember the “healing words” with a little more energy than the words that damaged.

Maybe I blunder….but if I blunder with the occasional good intention, maybe something will take root and grow in a good way in someone else’s life?

That’s a lot of responsibility.

That’s a lot of power.

I guess that maybe what we need is to feel like we have some sort of impact on the world.

Maybe we need to feel that when someone greets us with a smile, that the smile is sincere….and deserved.

It’s all perception, anyway.

We measure impact by what we see….if we don’t have rockstar, megachurch, king of the world impact and influence….then we must not be leaving much of a mark on the world.

Somehow, big must be better than good…and big and good must really be something grand.

But it’s these small things….the things that slip by us….the river wearing away a canyon given time….that have the real power.

It’s power without the need to grandstand or attract a lot of attention.

It’s a fresh sugar cookie in a warm kitchen with a grandmother who makes you think that you’re the best person who ever ate a cookie with her.

It’s someone who lets you take for granted that you are loved.

It’s someone who never makes you wonder about your place in the world… and in their hearts…. who has the real power.

There are small injuries that we pick at that never heal.

There are injuries that we use to build a fortress around us…sad brick by sad brick with pain for the mortar….

There are things that we construct out of casual insults that we can’t climb over….that block out the sun…that make us remember our hopelessness.

But….there is also a seed that kindness leaves behind….waiting to grow into something sustaining.

No doubt.

No freaking doubt.