Un-Ordinary

Every week, volunteering at the food bank warehouse is different-

Rescuing groceries before their sell-by date

Inspecting apples

Bagging loose onions

Today they fork-lift out gray plastic bins

5 feet wide by 5 feet long by 4 feet high

Filled with hard, unripe avocados

That we are to put into small, black plastic crates

1 foot wide by 2 feet long by 1 foot high

The avocados go in one layer deep

Everyone grabs a crate and starts layering avocados, carrying the crate over to the palette, stacking them, and then grabbing another crate

When the bin is full, it’s easy

Just reach in and grab a several avocados at a time

As the level gets lower, there’s more bending and reaching

Each of us is rocking up and down many times to fill one crate

When we’re down to a foot of avocados in the bin it gets strenuous—

Reaching in, bending over almost in half, and then back up with only a few avocados in our hands

Over and over

So we put the crates in the bottom of the bin and scoop the avocados into them

Then we grab the full crate, lift it out, and stack it on the palette

At one point someone puts their crate in the bottom and starts filling it

His friend drops avocados into the same crate

Seeing this, everyone puts avocados into the crate

It’s filled in about 20 seconds

Someone grabs it and takes it away.

Inspired, we all start doing this—

An empty crate goes over our heads into the bin

We all drop avocados into it

Someone takes the full crate and another crate appears

We don’t even look up from the bin

We are a food bank flash mob whizzing through the avocados

Empty crates arrive

Avocados fill them instantaneously

Full crates disappear

Again and again and again

No one organizes it

No one tells people what to do

We all just find our own place and do what needs to be done

The energy of the work surges

We are joyful in our spontaneous creation

In that moment I know myself to be beyond myself

In that moment I know myself to be part of a perfect whole—

The Presence of God