While staying in Paris, Rainer maria Rilke, the poet, passed daily an old beggar woman. She sat silently and apparently indifferently, along a garden fence.
If someone put a coin into her hand, she quickly let it disappear into her coat pocket. She never looked up to the giver. Submitting to her fate, she squatted at the wall - a vivid picture of misery.
One day, Rilke and his friend stopped before the beggar woman. Into the hands of the old woman he put - a rose.
Then something happened which never had happened before: the beggar woman looked up, clasped the hands of the poet and kissed them. Then she went away with the rose.
The next day the woman was not at her usual place. It was like that the second and third day - for a whole week.
Puzzled, the friend asked the poet about the alarming reaction the gift had caused. Rilke said, " One has to give to her heart, not her hand."
His friend could not help asking another question: What did the beggar woman live from all these days since nobody had put money into her hand? Rilke answered, "She lived from the rose."
May we be blessed as we give to the heart as well as to the hand.
If someone put a coin into her hand, she quickly let it disappear into her coat pocket. She never looked up to the giver. Submitting to her fate, she squatted at the wall - a vivid picture of misery.
One day, Rilke and his friend stopped before the beggar woman. Into the hands of the old woman he put - a rose.
Then something happened which never had happened before: the beggar woman looked up, clasped the hands of the poet and kissed them. Then she went away with the rose.
The next day the woman was not at her usual place. It was like that the second and third day - for a whole week.
Puzzled, the friend asked the poet about the alarming reaction the gift had caused. Rilke said, " One has to give to her heart, not her hand."
His friend could not help asking another question: What did the beggar woman live from all these days since nobody had put money into her hand? Rilke answered, "She lived from the rose."
May we be blessed as we give to the heart as well as to the hand.