CRAFTSBURY − I imagine we’re all familiar with the ripple effect. Drop a stone of any size into a pond, and watch the ripples feather out from the point of impact. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to imagine the many ripples affecting us, emanating from us, moving toward and enveloping us.
I read a Facebook post today from a friend who lives in Atlanta. He and his wife own a home in the mountains of North Carolina. Their property was damaged in last year’s severe flooding. He’s been working tirelessly since that flood to clean up their property and to help in their neighborhood and surrounding towns.
It was devastating for him: the loss of life, the destruction, the horror, the immensity of it all. That Facebook post that I read, written July 5, reveals yet another rippling. When they were pre-teens he and his wife met at a Christian camp that is nestled along the Guadalupe River. It is the same river that overtook Camp Mystic, killing 27 young girls and camp staff. He knows every inch of the area that has been severely flooded. He watches the video footage and can easily transport himself there. He knows people. He knows landmarks. He knows businesses. The place is in his bones. Just like his property in North Carolina. And just like that, the trauma of last year’s flood returns to him. The ripples from the flooding in Texas have reached him. Drop a stone into a pond; who knows where the ripples will go? We all know they reach far and wide.
As I write this, July 10 is a few days away. Many in Vermont are bracing for that day, a date on which many places in Vermont experienced devastating floods, each of the last two years. Will it happen again? The ripples from those floods continue to envelope us.
Horrific events and actions have ripple effects. No one can gauge the impact one action or event has on others. The effect is not just local and it’s not only immediate. The ripple effect takes it far beyond the one spot and time of impact.
Isn’t that also true, though, for acts of goodness and kindness? Isn’t that also true for events of joy? I attended a wedding recently, the first one I’ve attended since my husband died. I was overcome with joy for the newly married couple, sad and missing my husband, grateful for our many decades of life together. Others there were also widowed, or divorced, or married or single. I wonder how the ripples from that event of love and joy enveloped them. The wedding was all about the couple getting married. And it was not. That particular couple worked hard so that it wasn’t just about them. Still, well beyond anything they could orchestrate, the ripples traveled far and wide, enveloping many, many people in their myriad of circumstances and places in life.
You and I are encouraged to perform random acts of kindness. The data reveals that being kind does really good things for the person being kind. I don’t think that’s the only or even the primary reason for being kind. Kindness, love, joy, all the actions stemming from those positive emotions, have a ripple effect. Kindness begets kindness. Joy begets joy. Love begets love. Maybe it’s not direct, or immediate. You and I cannot plan how our kindness will be received, nor the impact it will have. We do know the effect of ripples. They reach far and wide.
Maybe acts of kindness, acts of love, expressions of joy ought not be so random. Maybe they could be a regular part of our lives, something we do each day. And maybe, just maybe, those ripples will reach far enough and wide enough to envelop even the most horrific of circumstances, relieving a bit of the suffering.
Deborah McKinley is a happily retired Presbyterian minister. She lives in Craftsbury and enjoys doing pretty much anything outdoors.
