A blind man sat on the corner with a basket for donations and a cardboard sign saying, “I am blind, please help.” He barely sold enough pencils to keep food on the table in the tiny room where he lived.
One day a man came and asked, “How much did you take in yesterday?” The blind man told him, and he asked, “If I guarantee you at least that much today, can I change your sign?” The blind man agreed, and the sign was changed.
At the close of day, the man came back, and the basket was overflowing with money. The blind man asked the stranger what he wrote on the sign, and he said, “Today is the first day of autumn, and I am blind.”
The first cardboard sign appealed to people’s pity, and pity is not of the heart. It is of the head. The second sign went straight to the heart. Everyone with sight has seen autumn’s glory exploding in every tree and spreading all over the ground. The very thought that this poor man could never see that magnificence made them deeply desire to do something – anything – to convey the beauty they were experiencing directly to him.
Thinking of autumn, a man I hired to cut my grass vacuumed my yard one autumn. I told him to leave the leaves on the ground next time. Nature’s cycle is for the leaves to refertilize the ground for springtime growth. And I love the ground exploding with color.