I came into the kitchen this morning to find a few slivers of glass on the counter. I asked my house guest if she knew of a glass breaking, wanting to make sure no one had been injured. She was embarrassed and apologetic and explained that she had tried to dry her fingertips on the corner of a towel (which also had a wine glass drying on it). The tiniest movement in the towel had caused the wine glass to topple into the sink, breaking into pieces.

As my friend remarked on her “clumsiness”, I asked her if she’d be willing to look at the accident from a different perspective. Would she consider trading her burden of clumsiness for the gift of deeper learning. What if the lesson was: when I use the corner of a dish towel with a wine glass drying on it, the smallest ripple causes the wine glass to shift its position, perhaps tipping over and breaking. And what if the deeper lesson is: even the smallest acts impact the world in some way. What if we all were more mindful of our words and actions, cultivating a deeper awareness?

Perhaps our teachers are everywhere ~ even in the kitchen and in a simple accident.