One Mitzvah at a time

In the early 1990’s there was a show on TV called In Living Color.  It was a mixed race comedy show, poking fun at everyone and anything.  In LIving Color was hip and current, even edgey for it's time.  It reminded me of the 60's show Goldie Hawn was on (Laugh In) and Flip Wilson and Red Skelton (okay I was little then, but I remember). It used to make me laugh so hard, my head hurt.  At the same time, I had a part time job working in a department store.  There I made a good friend and we used to laugh and joke, using the new “slang” created by rap – like “bust a move”, hip hop jargon that would also just make us roll with laughter.Some how or another we coined the phrase “it’s a mitzvah”, meaning a good action.  
Recently I began watching re-runs of In Living Color and laugh at the skits again.  Then I remembered my friend and how we used the word “mitzvah”.
I still love the word mitzvah and the idea of doing good deeds, even though I am not Jewish.   It was a mitzvah at the gym when the guy who made me feel fat offered me a bottle of water and a Snickers bar.  He doesn’t know his friend made me self-conscious about my body, but the bottle of water assuaged my discomfort.It was a mitzvah when my uncle said I didn’t have to pay him back the money he loaned me to pay my son’s tuition. It is a mitzvah to me when my family helps me out with getting my son through college. It’s a mitzvah when a friend who knows I am struggling with changing my body image offers me an eating plan to help me get jump-started. It was a mitzvah when I loaned my sweater to my friend when she was chilly one day.  When folks were sick in my office I went around making my lemon and honey special. 

The thing about a mitzvah, like an act of kindness, is there is no expectation to receive something back.  It comes from the heart, it can’t  be planned, it just is.
I like making people happy with no concern for what I am going to get from it. There is a little preschool song:


Love is something if you give it away, it’s just like a magic penny, hold it tight and you won’t have any, lend it, spend it, you’ll have so many, they’ll roll all over the floor, love is something if you give it away.

One little bit of caring at a time. One little bit of laughing at a time.  One little bit of sharing at a time....it all adds up to some big time love.