The monk at the bus stop

I was at the bus stop the other day, having just come from a doctor's appointment I frankly hadn't enjoyed. It was freezing, I was tired and I just wanted to go home and curl up on the sofa with a cup of tea, but there was no sign of my bus, and hadn't been for the last 20 minutes. Now I know 20 minutes is not a terribly long time, but it is when you just want to be somewhere else. 

Also waiting for his bus was a franciscan monk. He looked about sixty, and had one of those kind, crinkly faces. He'd been standing in the cold for longer than I had, but he didn't look a fraction as irritated as I felt. It was just the two of us at that bus stop, and ordinarily I would have started a conversation, but I felt more like crying than chatting, so I kept my mouth shut and my head down. 

If I don't feel like talking to anyone else, I often start talking to God - not out loud, just in my head! So I began to tell Him how rotten things were, and asking Him to please send me a bus, and a dozen other silly things. After about five minutes of this, the monk walked over to me, put his hand on my head and said, "Bless you, my child". Then he turned and went back to where he'd been waiting, a couple of feet away from me. That was it. He didn't look at me again, he didn't say anything else to me. About half a minute later his bus came, and before I could work out what, if anything, to say to him, he was gone. 

For reasons I can't explain, that moment made me feel so much better. It was just a nice thing to do, a kind thing to do. I suppose it was a tangible reminder that you're never alone, even if it feels that way. If God wants to say something to you, He finds a way. For me, that way is most often through other people, occasionally through perfect strangers. Most of the time though, it's the wonderful friends (many of whom have come into my life through the chaplaincy) who bring me a sense of God's presence through their own presence. I hope you know who you are, and if you don't, I'll do my best to fix that!