Dear Reader,
Yesterday, I traveled from my home in Concord, California, to UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco. My purpose was simple. I wanted to be present for a friend who was undergoing surgery.
What I did not anticipate was that the journey itself would become a spiritual experience.
As I traveled on BART, walked through the streets of San Francisco, and eventually arrived at the hospital, I became increasingly aware of the extraordinary diversity of people surrounding me.
People of different nationalities, cultures, languages, religions, and backgrounds were everywhere. It was as though I had taken an international journey without ever leaving the Bay Area.
Yet something far more meaningful began to emerge.
At times, I must have appeared uncertain of where I was going. Complete strangers would approach me, asking if I needed assistance. When I needed to find a restroom, people kindly directed me to a nearby public library.
These were small acts of kindness, offered without expectation of recognition or reward.
Then something happened that brought this kindness into even sharper focus.
While navigating the streets of San Francisco, I lost my footing at a curb and stumbled. Almost immediately, two people approached from different directions to help me back to my feet.
They did not know me. They did not ask who I was, where I came from, or what I believed. They simply saw someone who needed assistance and responded.
For a brief moment, in what seemed like the wilderness of a great city, I experienced something profoundly reassuring.
I was not alone.
To me, those two strangers became an expression of God's love, reaching out through the kindness of ordinary people.
I had been observing the compassion of others throughout my journey. Now I had become the recipient of that same compassion.
Later, while having lunch in the hospital cafeteria, I met a physician from India. We began talking, and what followed was a warm, friendly, and informative conversation. We were two people from different backgrounds, yet we talked with the ease and comfort of old friends.
There was no need to explain our differences. They simply did not matter.
As the afternoon progressed, I waited for my friend to be released from surgery.
Sitting there, watching the hundreds of people passing through the hospital, I began to experience something I still find difficult to put into words.
There were people of every imaginable background. Some were patients, others were family members, physicians, nurses, hospital workers, or visitors. Each had a reason for being there. Each carried a life story unknown to me.
Some undoubtedly carried fear. Others carried hope. Some may have been experiencing great sorrow, while others were celebrating good news.
And yet, as I watched this great gathering of humanity, I experienced two feelings at the same time.
I was separate from these people. I did not know their names, their circumstances, or their beliefs. I was simply one individual sitting among hundreds of others.
Yet, at the very same moment, I felt that I belonged to them, and they belonged to me.
I was both an observer of humanity and a participant in something much greater than myself.
For a moment, the distinctions we so often use to separate ourselves seemed to disappear.
We were not Americans or foreigners, rich or poor, believers or nonbelievers. We were simply human beings sharing the experience of life.
And something within me recognized that we belonged to one another.
I began to think about the teachings of Jesus Christ and His commandment that we love one another.
I thought about the words found in the Book of Mormon:
"He inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female." — 2 Nephi 26:33
What a remarkable expression of divine love.
Christ does not ask us to become alike before He loves us. He invites us to recognize that His love already embraces us all.
Perhaps that is what I was experiencing yesterday.
Not simply the kindness of strangers, nor merely the beauty of cultural diversity, but something deeper.
A recognition that the divine love of God is not confined to the walls of a church, the teachings of a particular religion, or the boundaries of a nation.
It lives and finds expression wherever compassion, kindness, understanding, and genuine concern for another human being are present.
I have often reflected on the belief that we are children of a loving Heavenly Father, created with the capacity to reflect His divine nature.
Yesterday, I felt that truth in a way that no written explanation could fully convey.
I saw it in the stranger who offered directions.
I experienced it in the hands of two people who helped me when I stumbled.
I discovered it in a friendly conversation with someone whose life had begun thousands of miles from my own.
And I felt it in the quiet presence of hundreds of people gathered in a hospital, each seeking, in one way or another, healing, comfort, reassurance, or hope.
I did not know their names. I did not know their beliefs. I did not know their struggles.
But somehow, I felt connected to them.
I felt that we were all part of something greater than ourselves.
And I felt the presence of Christ—not as someone standing apart from humanity, but through the love that quietly connects us to one another.
As I returned home, I realized that I had gone to San Francisco to support one friend, but I had encountered something of the spiritual beauty of the entire human family.
Perhaps we spend too much of our lives looking for the differences that separate us, while overlooking the divine love that unites us.
Perhaps the kingdom of God is nearer than we sometimes imagine.
Perhaps it reveals itself whenever one human being reaches out to another without asking who they are, where they came from, or what they believe.
I think again of those two strangers who came to my assistance when I stumbled.
Neither knew that their simple act of kindness would remain with me long after we parted.
Neither could have known that, in helping an elderly stranger regain his footing, they would strengthen his faith in the love of God.
But they did.
And perhaps that is how divine love so often works—not through extraordinary events, but through ordinary people responding to the needs of one another.
Yesterday, among hundreds of strangers, I discovered something I hope never to forget.
We may be strangers to one another, but we are never strangers to God and His Son, Jesus Christ.
And if we are all His children, perhaps we were never truly strangers to begin with.
🙏🧘♂️💕🤗☮️
