veils falling, doors opening......

it's one of those weird days.
where some kinda veil has dropped off and i'm seeing a little clearer for the day.
i know the veils go back on. but for today, i'm really loving it.

i feel like it's one of the veils of impatience.
(other veils of different kinds of impatience are still there.
i know that cause i've felt them!)

but this one....kinda opens the door to tolerance.
seeing it.
allowing it.
and seeing the room tolerance creates.
and the beauty it encourages.

i was noticing it big time and enjoying it.
and then the message really got hit home to me when i was
walkin' to my car in the grocery store parking lot.

a woman parked next to me,
got out,
and said 'do you remember me?'

i looked at her and smiled.
'did you used to visit me at my house?'

she did indeed.

she's a jehovah's witness and would come do her thang now and again.

i knew i didn't share the same beliefs,
but i figured maybe a bible verse would be just what i needed to hear,
so i'd listen.

i kinda thought at the time that's what i was opening the door to -
the possible messages for me that day in the words they shared.
never really seemed to work, but i'd do it anyway.

today, i realized what i had done was much bigger than that.
i had opened a space in my world for more love.
made my world warmer.
a warmth that continued to that very moment in the parking lot.
years later.

as we stood there, she told me that my sons now lived in her neighborhood.
that her son had recognized them.
he used to come visit with her.

i remembered her mom had passed and asked her about that.
it gave her a chance to talk about her mom a bit.
her tears welled up in her eyes.
i asked her how long it'd been.
two years.
'oh, that's not long.' i said.
and she nodded 'it's not long at all.'

we hugged when we left.

as i drove away i realized that tolerance opens doors.
in ways we don't even know.
and it makes our lives bigger, warmer, better.

it's something i'm seeing so clearly today.

and it's something i'm just now thinking maybe we need to turn
towards ourselves.

tolerance of ourselves.
for when we stumble, fall, goof up, or whatever we feel like we do.

there's a lot to this.
and it's on my mind today.

there's a million doors every day that can open to tolerance -
to ourselves, strangers, and to those closest to us.

i want to open more and more and more of them.