When a smile saves the day.
A story from the Ranft — a path of light, liberation, and quiet magic
It was in the afternoon during our silent retreat, and even before we reached the Ranft, the path itself told us what this place is about. Everywhere along the way stood small wooden signs – Place of Silence – like gentle reminders inviting us into a deeper dimension. Each step whispered: be mindful, breathe consciously, arrive fully. The Ranft is not just a location; it is a field, a sacred presence that settles over your heart like an unseen hand, softening it, widening it, making you receptive. We walked slowly, some of us spread out along the path, each person wrapped in their own inner stillness yet held by the same quiet invitation to become more present with every breath. I was walking with a few participants, moving softly, in rhythm with the silence.
Two older men approached us on the trail. One of them wore a mask, lost in his own moment, wiping his nose as he passed. He said “Bonjour,” and I answered as well — softly, from that inner space where words don’t need to be loud. He didn’t hear me. Maybe because he didn’t really look at us, maybe because we were several people moving quietly, maybe because he himself wasn’t fully present.
Then he said something half-joking, half-triggered — a sentence in French, something like: “Who doesn’t greet is merde.” A small sentence, tossed out lightly, yet heavy enough to cut through the silence. In the faces of a few participants I saw that tiny flicker — Did I do something wrong? That old reflex rising in the body, the automatic movement toward guilt, apology, explanation, even when nothing wrong has happened.
But truly, no one was impolite.
We were simply in a different state of awareness — inward, quiet, in a sacred process.
And yet, I also understood the other side: how easily a person who does not know about the retreat might misread silence as disregard. How quickly someone might feel unseen, ignored, not acknowledged. How human it is to react from old wounds. How often our responses arise from our own stories rather than from the moment itself.
In that instant, I thought of all the gifts strangers have given me in my life: a single smile on the street, a warm look from someone I didn’t know — and how many times exactly such a smile saved my entire day. A moment of being seen. A moment of softness that shifted everything inside me. And I am sure you know this too: how one honest smile can change your whole energy. That is why
we sometimes offer that smile ourselves — not because we should, not because it is polite, but because we remember how sacred it feels to be seen. That feeling — that silent I see you — is what we give when we give from the heart.
True kindness comes from fullness.
Fullness does not expect anything in return.
It gives because it overflows.
A greeting, a smile, a Bonjour — they are only real when they rise from that fullness, from presence, from a heart that neither judges nor demands. The man on the path reacted from his own inner space, his own wounds, his own patterns. That belongs to him, not to us.
Perhaps the invitation of this little moment was exactly this: to remain in our truth, in our silence, in our fullness. To give when we truly want to. To stay still when the heart is silent. And to not make ourselves smaller just because someone else echoes their own old pain into the world.
In the end, it is never the words that matter.
It is the energy behind them.
And when we move from love, from presence, from our light, we bring more peace into the world than any Bonjour ever could.
Much Love,
Rosa 🌹
