The wind whipped around the Warren Dunes near Lake Michigan as 51-year-old Marty Davis walked and prayed. She pulled her sweater tight around her body and tucked her head down. She was on a solitary trip to the dunes, seeking time to meditate and heal.  Married for nearly 30 years and the mother of a grown son, Marty still battled the occasional ghosts of an abusive childhood. Time alone with God in nature, her camera by her side, was always the best remedy.

  Marty spotted a Monarch butterfly half-buried in the sand. She immediately recognized the markings, having raised thousands of Monarchs over the years as a hobby.

 This migrant butterfly never made it south to Mexico. He was tattered, his feet torn off and wings in shambles, mangled beyond the ability to fly. Marty assumed he was dead and walked on.

  Something, however, compelled her to stop and go back. She bent down and saw to her amazement that one antenna was barely moving. He was alive! Marty gently scooped him out of the sand and took him to her car.

  Within an hour, the fragile butterfly had a makeshift container, a steady diet of fresh watermelon, and a name—Warren—for the dunes where he landed.

   Warren became Marty’s traveling companion, and she eventually carried her adoptee back home to

  It is a marvel Marty experienced first-hand in January of 2000.

 “I even showed Warren photos and videos so he could be there in spirit,” Marty says.

“He would sit in front of me on a soft towel and sometimes he would turn his head from side to side as I talked.”

  Marty hand-fed Warren two to three times a day for 14 weeks before he died.

 “I cried and cried,” Marty says. “He was such a powerful symbol of my own wounds, my struggle to survive, and of being scooped up out of the sand and tenderly nurtured by God.

This “In an Instant” experience about the significance of a single choice comes from Rose in Orange County, California, through www.Anneryder.com :

While my In an Instant experience was not dramatic, or life-threatening, or dire, it was life-changing. One that many probably dealt with during their college years.Back in college, I declared a psychology major, with the intention of saving the world, one person at a time. I truly believed that’s what I was meant to do and I was excited to get on with the saving.

After two years at a community college, I planned on transferring to a four-year institution to finish out the remaining two years. Without hesitation, I completed the application, marking “psychology” as my major, and after receiving an acceptance package in the mail, scheduled myself into a two-day orientation at the school.

Part of the orientation included meeting a few psychology faculty members who led me on a tour of the classrooms and labs and explained the program further. The turning point that sealed my fate was examining a machine that processed results from a study conducted with rats. This college–which I had wanted to attend more than any other school–offered a BS degree in psychology, not the BA I intended to earn and thought was an option.

Immediately following the tour, I marched straight into the registrar’s office to change my major from psych to English. Quite literally, in an instant, I changed the rest of my life forever, choosing a pasttime as a course of study rather than the subject for which I had prepared throughout the past two years. I always enjoyed reading, took journalism classes and wrote for the school paper in high school, and had been told I wrote well, but never before that moment had I considered writing as a career choice.As soon as I submitted the change of major form to the lady behind the desk in the registrar’s office, I called my mother to inform her of the change. Her initial reaction, which was the only thing I feared, was dismay, then concern, then frustration. It was my fault that she became frustrated. I was so scared at disappointing my parents that when my mother wasn’t immediately happy and supportive, I didn’t know how to respond except with a curt good-bye and hanging up the phone.

Looking back years later, my parents are both pleased with how things turned out. I feel such immense gratitude for the strength I had that afternoon to turn my life upside down, and for the support I received after returning home from the orientation. After graduating with that degree in English, I worked for a newspaper and served as the editor of two books. Today, I am a successful journalist, working as the managing editor for a regional magazine in

Orange County, Calif., where I live with my husband and our dog.

This “In an Instant” post comes from Heather Homay, at LeHigh Valley Hospital in Pennsylvania.

I just got home from hearing you speak at my work, Lehigh Valley Hospital in Bethlehem, PA.
Throughout your speech, I couldn’t help but think about my boyfriend. In your speech, you mentioned that some people just have a magnet force about them that draws you in, a light that shines directly through them and out to others. My boyfriend had this light.
I met him, coincidently, while at work. He was one of my patients! I have never believed in “love at first sight,” but with him, it truly was. I did a double take and from that day on I was never the same. I’ll never forget looking into his eyes for the first time. He smiled with his eyes- crystal clear and light green. Looking into his eyes I knew I was in the presence of someone extraordinary. I felt comfortable and welcomed.
He was currently in his fourth remission from Leukemia and had come to this country, from Syria, for a bone marrow transplant. We found a common ground, as my grandfather is Syrian. We talked while he was in the hospital, and he asked me for my phone number so we could continue talking after he was discharged. I gladly handed my number over to him and prayed that he called. There was just something about him. I couldn’t put it into words.
My family and friends questioned whether or not I wanted to get involved with someone that was “sick.” Oddly enough, for me, it was never even a “question.” As I mentioned, I was just being drawn to him. It felt natural and I felt like I had known him my entire life.
We spent the entire summer together–sharing stories, getting to know each other, and just having fun. My favorite times with him were when we’d just lay and talk. We’d talk about what we’d done our whole lives, our families, our dreams for the future, his fears of dying-anything and everything. We grew very close, very fast.
I’m not sure if it was his upbringing in a different culture, or his enlightened view on life he had received from being sick, but he had the most wonderful view. He loved everyone. He looked at everyone as his friend, whether he knew them or not, and loved and cared for them. He knew life was short because he had been faced with death. He truly did live each moment to the fullest, didn’t stress, and advised others to do the same. He truly opened my eyes to what’s important. I know everyone wishes to live this way, but he truly did.
One day, that would turn out to be the last time I ever saw him, we were laying in silence, just being together. He looked over at me and said, “I know you are my angel. I think God sent you to me.” Tears poured into my eyes, not only because of the beautiful words he had just spoken, but because that was exactly the way I felt about him. I felt blessed for having the opportunity to love such an extraordinary person.
Towards the end of the summer he had come out of remission and had to go into the hospital. One night I was awakened by the phone. It was his brother, calling to tell me he had passed away.  I hung up the phone and collapsed on my bedroom floor. I felt as if my insides had been sucked out of my body. I couldn’t breathe and I felt as if the walls were closing in on me. Never have I experienced such pain and grief.
Why had God given me the most wonderful person I had ever met, only to take him away? I was so angry, for so long. But, as I got over the shock and grief I came to realize that I had learned so much from him. I truly had changed.
I live my life so differently now. He changed me. My changing was a culmination of several “in an instant” moments. They all added up to one beautiful, priceless moment. I experienced more love in those few months than many do in a lifetime. I learned to cherish my life and those in it. I learned not to worry and stress out so much. I learned that if you let them, people can change your life.
I am so much more involved in my life. I no longer feel as if I’m just going through the motions. I try to enjoy each day. I make time to volunteer for various events, and to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I’m working full-time and going to school.
We don’t know what the future holds. I know now that’s part of the beauty of life. Walking into work the day I met him, I never could have guessed what was about to happen to me. Yet I’m so grateful that it did. I know I’m changed for the better, and because of him, perhaps now I can change the lives of others. I carry him and all our memories with me every moment of every day… in my heart.

 Last night, 40 years after something courageous and remarkable in race relations happened in Indianapolis, it happened again, though in a more muted setting and manner.

It was the four-decade anniversary of an act of violence and an act of peace. In Memphis, a white man shot and killed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.    In Indianapolis., another white man calmed a storm and averted a probable riot with a remarkable impromptu speech.

Almost no one close to Robert Kennedy wanted him to go through with his planned campaign appearance in a downtown park at 17th and Broadway. Not his wife, Ethyl–and not the mayor of Indianapolis, who threatened to send fire trucks to disperse the crowd of nearly two thousand people.

Word of the assassination was spreading and the tension was palatable in the racially mixed crowd that night. There were guns and knives. Robert Kennedy made his way in the dark to a shaky platform on a flatbed truck, asked people to lower their campaign signs, and spoke from his heart.

He informed the crowd of the assassination. Some people cried out. A ripple of silence then washed over it. He spoke about understanding how those who were black might feel hatred and the need for revenge, since the crime apparantly came at the hands of a white man.

He said he understood–that he too lost a family member because of the actions of a white man. He was wearing the overcoat of his brother, John F. Kennedy at the time, and it was the first time he had spoken publically of his death.

Robert Kennedy then spoke of choices; choices to hate and forge bitterness,  or to find hearts of love, understanding and compassion, as Dr. King had preached. Then–to a largely poor, black audience–the Senator paraphrased Aeschylus, a Greek poet:

“In our sleep, pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom, through the awful grace of God.”

The speech lasted a little more than 3 minutes. He quietly left the stage. Most people in the crowd were too stunned to applaud.

There were race-related disturbances or riots in 28 cities that night but Indianapolis was not one of them.

Kennedy’s remarkable words spoken in Indianapolis on April 4th, 1968, are etched in a marker near his burial site.

A documentary on the Indianapolis event and Kennedy’s speech ,”A Ripple of Hope,” by Donald Boggs and Anderson University’s Covenant Productions, www.rippleofhopemovie.com premiered last night at the Madam Walker Theatre in downtown Indianapolis.

The event was presented by the Heartland Film Festival www.trulymovingpictures.org and was free to the public. 

 People in flannel shirts shuffled in to take seats next to dignitaries. Several people in the crowd had attended the rally 40 years earlier.

After the film , a panel took the stage to fuel discussion. “Don’t be shy,”urged the moderator to the crowd. The founder of Martin University lit the first fire with his candor, telling the crowd his heart felt like it was in his throat, beating hard throughout the film.

“How much has really changed in 40 years?,” he asked.  He noted that Barack Obama was campaigning in Indiana that very evening and asked whether there was anyone in the crowd who had not wondered whether the same fate might meet with the young African-American Senator from Illinois.

Then the deputy mayor of Indianapolis spoke up, admitting that he once hated white people.

 You could hear a pin drop in the theatre.

 He was old enough, he said, to remember the says of segregation–of separate restrooms for the “colored boys.” 

 When Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, he was fighting in Vietnam, “wondering what the hell I was doing there,” and said he was angry that Blacks in his hometown were not rioting in protest like they were in Detroit and other cities.

Last night he says he understood for the first time the majesty of what truly happened 40 years ago at 17th and Broadway.

He talked about the transformation that took place in his own life–his faith journey and the melting of his hatred and bigotry.

A man who once wanted to see his city “burn” is now it’s deputy mayor.

His candor required courage.

One by one, people started filing to the microphone.

Most of them had black faces.

Forty years to the night–the irony was not lost on anyone that there was still tension in the room.

There are divisions, difficult issues and predjudices. But where there is dialogue, there is hope.

Robert Kennedy’s eloquent words still resonate, and the film rippled through the theatre the way the words rippled over the people gathered at 17th and Broadway nearly a half century ago.

I left the theatre hoping the ripple–having begun drop by drop upon the heart– creates a wave.

For change to occur, pain and courage need to unite. Both were in evidence on April 4th in Indianapolis–40 years apart.

 Truth be told, I’ve complained to my husband about the neighborhood grocery store. I’ve caught myself grumbling about the changing demographics I’ve noticed there. I’ve clutched my purse tighter to my body as I swipe my credit card. I noticed people around me using food stamps. I never used to see food stamps at our neighborhood grocery store. 

I’ve taken a good look around. I don’t know these faces. The eyes are tired. The bodies wear worn coats and have hard working hands. Where do they live? In the apartment complex nearby? I felt a little guilty as I grumbled–a bit judgmental–but I grumbled anyway.

One day last week,  while reaching for some canned Italian tomatoes, someone called me by my first name. I turned around to see a young woman, vaguely familiar, with large, kind eyes and a lovely smile.

 She had a hoodie and a sweater under her lightweight coat–chocolate brown–the color of her skin. She told me her name. “Remember me? From ’Queen of Peace,” she asked? “You were there with your daughter.”

“Queen of Peace” is the homeless shelter in Indianapolis set up by Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. My daughter and I go there occasionally to cook a meal for the women struggling to find work.

We met her one Thursday evening a few months earlier.

Here she was, on my side of town.

We stood in the aisle, grocery cart-to grocery cart, catching up like a couple of suburbanites. She was getting on her feet, she said. She’d found a job at a fast food restaurant and was staying in a motel nearby. She was on the list for a section-8 apartment. She was supporting her mother, who was on disability with a back injury.

 As we spoke, the snow outside swirled around in a bitter wind.  She told me how she caught the bus 45 blocks to work and back each night. 

” It’s hard, but we’re making it. And when we get an apartment I’m going to go back to school,” she said.

She asked about my daughter. She told me how good her mother had always been to her, and that it felt good to return the favor and help her mother.

I gave her a lift to the motel so she wouldn’t have to walk in the cold.

At the door of her unit, she gave me a sweet smile and a hug.  “I’ll never forget you, Anne Ryder” she said. 

“I won’t forget you either,” I said. 

On the short drive home, I thought about  humility and perspective. 

As long as my “service “ was within my comfort zone–at the shelter–at a designated time, I had my heart open.  But my friend made it woefully apparant that service IS love, and it is a state of mind. The opportunities are all around us. 

 They are  in the grocery store, in the schools, in offices, in shelters, even in mansions.

They are everywhere there are people in need.

Because my perspective had shifted–from the shelter to the grocery store–from her world to mine– my first response was fear.

It was an ugly, ego-based response.

That is not how I want to live. 

 Humility is my “just dessert” this Lent. I want to thank her for the big piece of humble pie.