At this time in history, while our country is so divided and people are going out of their way to create an “us versus them” mentality, we need to do the opposite. We need to spread kindness and niceness. We’re all drawn to certain heroes, celebrities, supermodels, or sports figures who exemplify our different hobbies and interests. If you’re not naturally drawn to nice-mentors, you’ll need to find and choose some. You wouldn’t choose a mean, abusive, law-breaking sports jock to be your spiritual mentor, and you shouldn’t choose anyone but nice people to be your nice-mentors.
One of my nice-mentors happens to be a Catholic nun by the name of Sister Bonnie Steinlage, SFP, a former Franciscan Sister of the Poor, who spent her years dedicated to helping the poor.
Homelessness can frighten and confuse people—I know that it does me. I used to have a difficult time seeing beyond the dirty exterior of the homeless, and I could easily jump into judgment about how those people ended up in the position they’re in. Is that the person I want to be? No, hence my need for a nice-mentor like Sister Bonnie.
One day, I arrived at one of my schools and found a homeless man hanging out in front of the building. Normally, because of my own fears and prejudices, I would’ve ignored him. Or worse, I would’ve called the police to have him removed. But because of Sister Bonnie’s influence on me, I chose a different plan. I decided to step outside of my own egotistical, fear-driven self and began talking to him. After a ten-minute conversation about who knows what, I asked him if he’d like to come into the school for a service, to which he enthusiastically replied, “Yes!” I escorted him in, had him take a seat in the reception area, then walked to the back of the school and asked a group of students, “Who wants to be a daymaker?” Ten students immediately raised their hands. I grabbed one of them, brought him to the reception area, introduced him to the homeless man, and asked him to take good care of his “client.” Two hours later, after being shampooed, conditioned, groomed, and cared for, the homeless man left the school.
I won’t attempt to exaggerate or embellish the story by talking about how the experience changed the homeless man’s life, because I honestly don’t know how it affected him. His experience is not the point. The person who changed was me. First of all, how difficult was it for me to offer this man a service in my school? How much did it actually cost me? Not much, but that’s also not the point of this story.
The point is this: Because of Sister Bonnie’s simple mentoring, I made a tiny shift in my thinking and perception about the homeless. I haven’t gone on to raise millions of dollars for homelessness, and I haven’t volunteered hundreds of hours to help that cause. But I did let go of a fear and a belief system that didn’t serve me and had held me back from feeling good about myself. Finding and studying a new program that will make you happy is all about tiny shifts in thought and action, which eventually add up to monumental strides of growth. Nice-mentors can nudge you along that path.