A nine-year-old girl was spending time with her grandparents in Kansas. The grandfather was away, so she was sleeping with the grandmother. Suddenly she awoke in the middle of the night to see her elderly grandmother sitting up in bed and a man standing over her, dripping with rain and with a wooden club in his hand, ready to strike. The little girl felt a scream rising, and then her grandmother touched her hand and she felt a flood of calm wash over her. The grandmother said to the man, “I am glad you found our house. You’ve come to the right place. You are welcome here. It is a bad night to be out. You are cold, wet, and hungry. Take the firewood you have there and go stir up the kitchen stove. Let me put some clothes on, and I will find you some dry clothes, fix you a good hot meal, and make a place for you to sleep behind the stove where it is good and warm.” She said no more but waited calmly. After a long pause, the man lowered the club and said, “I won’t hurt you.” She then met him in the kitchen and cooked a meal, gave him dry clothes, and made up a bed for him behind the stove. The grandmother then went back to bed and she and her granddaughter went back to sleep. They awoke the next morning to find the man gone.
About 10 A.M., the police arrived with a canine unit that had followed the man’s scent to the house. They were shocked to find the grandmother and granddaughter still alive.The man was a psychopathic murderer who had escaped from prison the night before and had brutally slaughtered the family who were the nearest neighbors.
(the story is summarized in George Kohlrieser’s Hostage at the Table and is taken from Magical Child by Joseph C Pearce)
The grandmother’s centeredness and ability to be strong in her sense of self and not think of herself as a victim saved her life and that of her granddaughter.
While we are unlikely to find ourselves in a hostage situation like this one, we are all exposed to opportunities to stay centered and rise above:
- The times when other drivers cut you off in traffic your anger rises
- When events at work become filled with anger and you feel that the “other shoe is about to drop”
- When you are insulted or slighted by your associates and feel they may be trying to “push you to the edge.”
- When you hear the “good news” from others about their successes and wish it were your own.
Life constantly presents us with opportunities to benefit ourselves and others by staying centered.