I was sitting in Starbucks scanning the Lethbridge Herald when I came across a small article on the second page. It was entitled “Bus driver gives his shoes to a man on the street.” The story out of Winnipeg was about an unnamed bus driver who stopped the bus and, to the amazement of the passengers got out, took off his shoes and gave them to a man who was shoeless.

 A passenger asked why he had done it, to which the driver replied he thought he could do something. Interesting.

 Here among the stories about a rapist on trial, a man accused of threatening someone’s life, vandals erasing native history, is a short little blurb of someone ordinary doing something, well, extraordinary. How many of us would remove our shoes and give them to a perfect stranger?

 Now I know people do good deeds all the time. They just don’t always get noticed publically like all the bad things we humans do. I wonder though, if we weren’t such a self-absorbed culture, how many opportunities would present themselves where we could do something. Do something to make a difference in someone’s life.

 If we put others ahead of ourselves, worried less about what makes us happy and more about what makes others happy, how different would this weary world be?

 According to Statistics Canada our country has a 40 per cent divorce rate. Between 13 and 14 million people will experience a depression disorder. The Canadian Health Association claims 15 people out of 100,000 commit suicide. I wonder if we made an honest effort to put others first, how different these numbers would be.

 Mother Teresa said it best, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”

 That bus driver did something small, many people won’t hear of what he did, he didn’t do anything completely earth shattering. But among all the bad news about horrible things that have happened, and have become so common that people hardly raise an eyebrow, his story sticks out because it is proof that good exists.

 I’ll end this blog with another Mother Teresa quote, because it seems to end it so perfectly; “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We only have today. Let us begin.”