Story

 

"My starting point is the fundamental initial fact that each one of us is perforce linked by all the material, organic and psychic strands of his being to all that surrounds him... The true physics is that which will, one day, achieve the inclusion of man in his wholeness in a coherent picture of the world."

​

-- Teilhard de Chardin, Jesuit priest and paleontologist, 1881-1955

 

 

During a visit to New York with her husband, a woman commented about a building she liked the looks of across the street. Her husband -- in the anonymity of a NYC sidewalk -- made a belittling comment to her, usually reserved for home, about how little she knows.



A stranger standing at the stoplight in front of them overheard their exchange, turned around, agreed with the woman's appreciative comment, and told the husband he was "an ass" before the light changed and she crossed the street.



The moment was a Pivot Point for the wife. Catching the abusiveness and lifting it into the light, as the stranger did, was the moment she needed to take her life in a new direction. And, she did. Eventually she financially and emotionally removed herself from the marriage and became an advocate on behalf of women who are victims of domestic abuse.



The New York City stranger had no idea how profoundly she impacted the journey of another person's life.

 

This story, retold by Rachel Naomi Remen, is one of the infinite ways we interconnect in our "individual" lives.

 

[TO INCLUDE OR LINK TO OTHER STORIES]