I listen to the radio quite a bit while I am out making my sales calls.  My favorite station is National Public Radio (NPR).   Today I was listening to The Bob Edwards Show and was touched by a story that his guest, Louis Ferrante, shared.

Louis Ferrante is the author of the book “Unlocked; A Journey From Prison to Proust”.  Ferrante had been a member of a New York Mafia family and spend nine years in various state and federal prisons for his Mafia related crimes.  In prison he became a voracious reader of books on all types of subjects, including history and philosophy.  After studying world religions he converted to Orthodox Judaism.  His story was about an encounter with another prisoner and how that prisoner’s life had been changed by a simple act of kindness. 

Ferrante and this prisoner were chained to each other during a transfer to a state prison in upstate NY.  Apparently the trip lasted several days and the men were not allowed to bath until they arrived at the final destination causing them to be quite “ripe” upon arrival. 

Since Ferrante had been transferred many times, he always made it a point to have his commissary account transferred to the new prison so that he could immediately purchase basic toiletry items. The other prisoner had not planned ahead and arrived at the new prison with nothing.  Ferrante offered to purchase this prisoner toiletry items and the prisoner seemed surprised that anyone would offer anything to him.  The prisoner declined, but Ferrante went ahead and ordered extra supplies as well as packages of instant noodles which he gave to the other prisoner anyway.

At a later date the prisoner came into Ferrante’s cell as he was studying Torah.  The man seemed surprised that Ferrante was Jewish since he was obviously from an Italian family.  Ferrante said that the man became very uncomfortable and left the cell in a rush.  Ferrante was confused by this behavior but brushed it off.

Ferrante later saw the prisoner in the yard with several young men and realized that the man was a member of the Aryan Brotherhood and was initiating the young men into the Brotherhood.  It was then that Ferrante understood the man's discomfort during the earlier encounter.

Some time later the prisoner came to his cell with several cassette tapes which had been given to him.  He had noticed that Ferrante had a cassette player and wanted to give the tapes to him as a gift.  In the prison economy cassette tapes are of great value since they could be sold to other inmates.  Ferrante declined the offer, but the man insisted that he take the tapes. 

It was some time later that the prisoner approached Ferrante and was extremely excited.  He told Ferrante that he felt different and Ferrante did not really understand.  The man then raised his shirt and showed Ferrante a tattoo on his chest of a swastika. The man explained that he was going to have the tattoo redone to remove the image of the swastika.  He explained that no one had ever given him anything in life until he had met Ferrante. He shared that he had changed his attitudes and wanted to change his life since the first person to show him kindness was a Jew.

We never really know how our actions affect people, do we? The smallest of gestures can make the biggest difference in someone’s life.  Likewise, one unkind word can crush a person’s spirit.  Our world tells us that big and flashy is what gets the attention, but really the small things are what really matter.  One simple act of kindness and respect could change the way a person thinks about an in entire race. 

Who are your actions going to affect today? Will they break someone’s heart or will they change it?  What a wonderful world this would be if we all practiced small acts of kindness everyday.