The Myth of Traveling Kindness

The Myth of Traveling Kindness

By Francesca Jahns

This story needs a bit of setup.  We took a day trip to Agios Nikolaos and were eating lunch at a restaurant by the beach.  While we were waiting for our food to arrive an elderly Greek woman came to our table and, in Greek, proceeded to offer us some items that she had for sale.  Francesca and I both felt conflicted.  On one hand, we were inclined not to give her any money because we donate to many charities thoughout the year, there is always the possibility that the person will use the money to purchase drugs or alcohol and we are traveling on a tight budget. 

On the other hand, we wanted to set an example in front of our kids on how to treat other people who are less fortunate than we are.  We ended up not giving the woman anything, but had a discussion about it with the kids at the table and they shared their feelings about it.  The next day as a school assignment Francesca tasked the kids (and adults, we always do the writing assignments as well) with making up their own Myth (since we had visited Knossos Palace ruins the day before which are the origins of the Theseus and the Minotaur myth). Francesca wrote a myth around the visit by the elderly lady from Agios Nikolaos.  It was so moving I decided to include it as this a bonus travel story this month   - Dan Jahns 

They brainstormed ways to help those who were less fortunate. One child said they would invite her and her kids to their home. Another planned to donate bags of clothing to the woman and her kids. As they discussed ways they could help those who were less fortunate, Spyros, the God of Kindness, looked down upon them and smiled. He wanted to see what they family would really do after they saw the woman again. 

The following week, they saw the woman again in town, but this time she was with her four children.  They were dressed in tattered clothing and looked very frail. The voyagers rushed over to them and offered food, water and clothing. They invited them to their house to shower, freshen up in new clothes, share a meal and have a warm bed to sleep in. 

As the voyagers listened to the woman tell their story, they learned that they too were voyagers who had been traveling for months when they suddenly lost their money and were trying to make their way back to their home. But getting back home without any money proved to be harder than she thought. The five voyagers helped the woman and her children find a bus that would take them home.  They would leave the next morning. 

That night, Spyros, the God of Kindness, came down to the voyagers' home with the woman and her four children all sleeping soundly.  He marvled at the new found friends that kindness had created and cast a spell down from heaven. If a person shows an act of kindness to another person, that act would set off a chain of kindness events that would travel all around the world as more act of kindness would keep setting off more acts of kindness. 

And sure enough, when the woman and her family left, they found a way to continue the kindness. One child got up from his chair on the bus to allow an elderly woman to sit. When the elderly woman got off the bus she saw a toddler about to wander into the street and she stepped in and stopped him. The parents were so grateful. Those parents, in turn, stepped in to help man at the store when he didnt' have enough money to purchase flowers for his wife.  And on the way home, that man gave the flowers he had purchased for his wife to couple getting married who had no flowers for their flower child to carry.  That couple eventually had a child and named it Iris, the type of flowers the man had so generously donated to their wedding years before. 

And that is how Spyros, the God of Kindness, made kindness travel like voyagers.