Don't mess with me, I'm recycling

So at our staff meeting, my pastor asked us to consider the question "When someone bumps into you, what spills out?"  My thoughts immediately went to the recycling machines at Wal-mart.

We drink a lot of pop at our house.  The adults, that is.  (I feel the need to tell you it's always diet.  I doubt you really care.) Anyway, in our beloved state we pay a can or bottle deposit which we can redeem by bringing our pop containers back to the local Wal-mart and painstakingly pushing them into a little machine.  It's a yucky job, but someone (that would be me) has got to do it.

Something about that scenario at the recycling machines always brings out the worst in me.  At least one of them is always broken or full.  There's always someone that comes with a huge cart full of cans and takes forever.  (Sometimes that person is me.)  More than once I've loaded all my cans into a cart, schlepped them through snow and ice, and whatever else is in the Walmart parking lot, into the store only to turn right around and schlep them back to my car because the machine was broken, the line too long, etc. 

All this to say, when I finally get in front of my little machine and I'm popping those cans in one after another, I tend to get a little territorial.  I usually try to have a can and bottle machine both going at once.  I straddle the two with my cart.  I give dirty looks to anyone else who dare approaches the area with a teetering pile of cans that could threaten the good thing I have going.

What can I say, it is every man for himself there at the recycling center at Wal-mart.

Until a couple weeks ago when I was there with my kids (no, the presence of my children usually does not change my selfish and generally inconsiderate behavior, I'm somewhat shamed to say).  As we approached, there was a very nice-looking college student cheerfully taking care of his cans and bottles.  He was doing the same straddle-two-machines maneuver, however as soon as he saw us he promptly cashed out of one and offered it to us with a smile.  As we worked side-by-side he would chat with the boys, casually pick up the multitude of cans the boys dropped as they worked and even toss a random bottle of his into our cart.  In the 8 or 10 minutes our worlds collided this random 20 year old guy brought joy and warmth to a generally distasteful task.  He blessed us.  At the recycling machine.

Who knew you could do that?

So I'd like to tell you that I made a vow right then and there to be a nicer can recycler.  To pay it forward, as they say, and be a blessing to someone else the next time.  But, to be honest the next time I was there I totally forgot about Mr. Friendly Recycler.  Until a guy walked up with his cart full and I instinctively started guarding my territory.  I felt the hardness, the selfishness rise up in me and only then did I remember our cheerful friend.

When someone bumps into me, what spills out?  All too often it's defensiveness, selfishness, a guarding of my own territory.  So I'm on a mission.  To be patient with the little old lady who is taking. so. long. to get her cart at Fareway.  To chat with the cashier at Walmart as she rings up my stuff.  To yield my turn instead of plowing forward.  To be a blessing in those small every day moments when I have a choice to guard or give.

Maybe I'll even show some love at the recycling machines.

Right now it takes effort, a conscious choice.  Someday I'm hoping it's just what spills out.