Distraughtness

Supplicate: To ask for earnestly and humbly.

One of the supplications I supplicate for in my morning meditation - what else do you do with a supplication, anyway, but supplicate it? - is that I be shown how I may be of service to another person during the day.  I don't know anything about the "earnestly" part and I'm pretty unclear about the "humbly" part, too, but I supplicate to the best of my ability.  Continuing my theme of extreme wariness about praying with special wariness about specific prayers I figure that this entreaty is vague enough that it can't boomerang back and whack me in the head.

There's a very, very nice woman who is always at my morning meeting who suffers from some kind of mental or emotional disability.  She's a good member in good standing who arrives early to an early meeting so that she can help set up the room and make the coffee.  But talking to her can be a challenge, you know?  She can't hear very well and she tends to get emotional and hard to follow.  Being an outgoing sort I figure that one of the ways I can be a member of good standing myself is to make sure that everyone at the meeting feels welcome.  I know who the regulars are and I'm alert to anyone who isn't engaged in the ebb and flow of the meeting aftermath.

The other day I inquired about this lady's grandson who is bouncing back and forth between unstable parents.  Boy, did I get an earful.  Fifteen minutes later, standing in a completely empty room, all of my friends and colleagues long gone, the people I really wanted to talk to, and she hasn't come up for air.  She was very emotional with the weeping and distraughtness and everything.

I thought: "This is being of service to another person."  And I don't want that to sound like I think I'm some special guy for taking the time to talk to this woman - I just asked the right question at the right time to someone who needed to talk, and isn't that what we're supposed to be doing?  Now, we're best friends.  

Simple as that.