Have you ever felt the heart-warming satisfaction of greeting a complete stranger with a simple hallo as you stretch yourself across the sidewalk during an early morning jog? It is filling like a cup of coffee. Cuts through the thin morning air like the ping of a silver fork against a glass. The simple mumble or the loud hi, sometimes an unrecognisable word that comes way too late, but it works.
There are of course those people that simply show no response what so ever. Not even a nod. I find that quite rude, or rather inexplainable... how someone can be in such a mannerless mood that they can ignore a friendly bit of motivation from a complete stranger who chose to speak to them... But now it has become sort of a challenge to see the reaction of someone as I come around the bend with my cheerful "mo-or-ning!" Every time someone does respond, and I win the challenge of course, I get a burst of energy to run the next stretch. And the next. And the next. Perhaps it is not the endorphins from running that makes me feel so good afterwards; rather the effect of the greetings!
If a simple hallo can do that, it can turn frowns into smiles, hatred into love, judgment into grace, make the world a better place. It starts with an ice-breaking hallo. A smile. A nod of confirmation. Eyes that meet.
Yet we skip the greeting parts at the end of so many letters in the Bible - boring, useless, not important. After my morning jog this week, I turned to Romans 16 and for the first time read every word of it, recognised every woman that Paul wanted to say hi to: Greet Priscilla, greet also the church that meets at their house, greet Mary, Junia, Tryphena and Tryphosa, Persis, the mother of Rufus, Hermes, the sisters, Julia, Olympas... Paul realised the power of a simple greeting. And these women were important enough for him to greet - he couldn't have done it without them. A simple hi and hallo gives recognition. It adds value. It smooths out the wrinkles of the past or last night's disagreements. It creates a fresh start on a clean page.
How much time do we spend greeting people in our daily routines? The builder on the street corner, the security guard at the shop, the gardener in the park, the lady behind the desk, the cleaner, the small child, the dog, the garbage truck driver, the grumbling neighbour...
Imagine how many good seeds you can sow with heart-warming hallo's to complete strangers... imagine how those seeds can grow up to become trees and plantations and bear fruit. Imagine the ice-cracking energy we would have in our hearts and legs if we started every morning of our lives with a proper greeting to God.
Hallo. Ola. Bonjour. Shalom. As simple as that.
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