Oh, My...

[Elspode]

So much has happened to my family lately, and not much of it has been good. It has, in fact, been *so* dire, that my entire worldview has been slowly slipping through my fingers like so many grains of sand. I have been seeing myself become increasingly cynical, seeing negativity everywhere.

Just yesterday, I made a statement to the effect that "there's something wrong with *everything*; there's a bad vibe going through the universe". Yes, I was committing what I would call "Pagan Original Sin"...I was failing to hold onto and believe in my own basic tenets. Out of that was forming the notion that people, in general, were jerks. I was in a bad place inside.

This morning, I sit here with tears rolling down my cheeks, because those cynical, destructive notions have been proven to be very, very wrong. This morning, I discovered that there are indeed good people in the world. Here, on the threshold of our annual season of giving and sharing, someone has done something for my family completely unsolicited, out of the blue...and I am stunned and touched beyond my ability to express. I am grateful beyond my ability to measure - not for what was done, precisely (although what was done is something so unbelieveably generous and selfless that I am humbled by it), but because my hope was given back to me because of what was done.

My friends, if I have been coming across here on The Cellar as being overly cynical, beaten, or desperate, I apologize. I *know* with my heart of hearts that things are not, cannot be as awful as they seem to be, but sometimes it takes a slap in the face to snap me around. Today, I got that slap, and it was administered with love and kindness and generosity. It was a slap in the face with a mink gauntlet.

For this, I am truly grateful. For the knowledge that such people exist, I am eternally blessed.