Opening your heart

The above title is the concept for the week from Melody Beattie's, 52 Weeks of Conscious Contact. This week she began with a story about a friend of hers who was befriended by a guy in the program when she was in the first stages of recovery. She was pretty much a wreck, and this guy gave her encouragement, rides to meetings, money, food, etc. - all without making any moves on her or expecting anything else either. Then she lost track of him. The story was that he had relapsed. She was walking down the street one day and saw a begger sitting on the sidewalk, obviously stoned, with long dirty hair and beard. Something caused her to look closely and she saw it was the guy who had been so much help to her. Ever since, Melody says, they both give money to beggars, because who knows what kind of beautiful people they really are underneath their appearances.

I'm pretty cynical and I never give money to beggars. I'm always kind of on the alert not to be made a fool of. So, now Melody has messed up my self-satisfied stance on a whole lot of things. More will be revealed. But for sure I'll probably be giving money to beggars.