[In our Laddership Circle today, I was reminded of this encounter that completely disarmed me.]

Many years ago, I was traveling with a group of people and we went to this festival. There's hundreds of people that come to these festivals, and I was there with a group and we were cooking.

One day, after we finished cooking and cleaning up, I was the only person there left in our camp. This very young girl came towards our camp, she looked very frail and was almost crawling. She looked about 13 or 14 years old.

She looked very sick and pale and came up to me asking, "Do you have any more food?"

We didn't have anything -- we had just finished serving it all and cleaning up, and there was nothing left.

She said, "I've been really sick and haven't been able to leave my tent for three days. I'm really hungry."

As we looked around, the only thing I could find was an orange.

I said, "This is all we have left. Would you like this?"

She said, "Thank you."

I peeled the orange and gave it to her. Then I remember the first thing she did was she took this orange, and she broke it in half.

She reached her hand out to me and said, "Would you like some?"

It twisted my mind, almost. :)

It was a real shock to hear this person -- who very visibly was sick and starving -- receive something as simple as an orange in this way. Her first thought was not to shove it in her mouth -- her first thought was, "Would you like some?"

It was a real awakening for me -- this concept that there's not a time or place where generosity can manifest. It can manifest at anytime. Regardless of what one's going through, one still has the opportunity to be generous.