The grace in donating blood

Can there be a simpler example of grace? These are anonymous donations: you don’t know who your blood will go to and what exactly it will be used for, whether the person into whose veins your vital fluid is infused will be a teacher, a sex worker, a typist, a snake handler or a real estate agent. You don’t know if or how they vote; if they are good sons, daughters, parents, wives or husbands; if potted plants wilt or bloom under their touch; if they believe in horoscopes or conspiracy theories, raw-meat diets or the power of human kindness. You don’t know if they send mean tweets, refused to give way to other cars in traffic, bully their siblings or cheat at Monopoly. All you know is there is a need and you can meet it. It is just a Thomas Merton wrote, that our job “is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.” — Julia Baird, Bright Shining