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(Michael McCarty) Alright! How y'all doing?
[audience responding]
(Michael) Some of life's funkiest experiences make some of the best stories
and this is a case in point with this story which I call 'The Power of Love'.
It was 1988 and '89, I was traveling around the south of India
going to temples and ashrams and ohm...
gettin' my spiritual groove on, you know what I'm sayin'?
So some friends of mine had showed up in a town called Pondicherry
to visit the Sri Aurobindo ashram.
We arrived in the town and my two friends went directly
to the main ashram hotel The Park Guest House.
I told 'em I'd see 'em there later, I wasn't in a hurry, wasn't in a worry.
It was the hot season in the south of India, 120 degrees in the shade.
The guidebook said at this time of year you didn't have to worry about gettin' a room
'cause nobody in their right mind would be there... but me and my friends.
So after roamin' the town a little while I showed up at the Park Guest House.
As I walk up to the steps to the lobby I notice
that this elderly Indian woman gave me a very dirty look
and then she said something to the man sitting behind the desk.
I went up to this gentleman, he says, "Can I help you?" I said, "Yes, I'd like a room."
"We don't have any rooms." "Really?"
Keys all over the board, up, down, and sideways.
I said, "Well, did so and so and so and so check in?"
Asking about my two friends who just happen to be White.
And he looked and said, "Yes, they did."
Now I'm pickin' up on something, duh.
But I don't want to believe what I'm pickin' up on because I'm at an ashram, a spiritual place.
But I maintain my spiritual cool.
"When will you have some rooms available?" "Maybe in a couple of days."
Okay, fine, I go check into another hotel.
The next morning I'm having breakfast with my friends in this hotel restaurant
and there's another friend of mine who had checked into the hotel
the previous evening after I'd been by there.
Now, I maintain a positive attitude.
Some rooms must have suddenly become available.
So I go to the lobby to check it out and there's that woman,
the one who'd given me the dirty look sitting behind the desk checking some people in.
So I'm standing to the side waiting for her to take care of her business
and she looks at me and says, "What you want?" with attitude.
I said, "Well, I came to see if you have some rooms available."
"No, we don't have any rooms for you.
"This isn't just some hotel, this is for people
"who are coming for the Sri Aurobindo ashram."
Like I'm halfway around the world and I don't know this.
[audience laughing]
Now, I am P-O'd.
I've had enough of the this town, I've had enough of this ashram,
I make arrangements to leave the following evening.
The next morning I go back to have breakfast with my friends in this hotel restaurant
only place in town with whole wheat toast, I'm a whole wheat toast kind of guy.
As I'm trying to go into the restaurant I am physically barred from entering
and told that I have to go get this...person's permission to go in.
Now, time out, you're talking about your former '60s militant type,
I know how to yell, scream, cuss, and fuss,
ain't done it in a while but I still remember how...
but I maintain my spiritual equanimity.
[audience laughing]
They tell me I have to go see this woman in the lobby,
I go to the lobby there she is sittin' behind the desk.
I says, "Madam, is there some problem?
"I'm just going to have breakfast with my friends,
"I was just in here yesterday, may I go in?" "No! You wait in the lobby!"
Oh, it's on now.
She done messed with the wrong person now.
I'm gettin' ready to raise some cain up in here.
And just as I'm gettin' ready to let loose this voice in my head says, "This is a test.
"It's easy to love those that love you, the test is to love those that hate you."
And I figured this woman qualifies.
[audience laughing]
Now you must understand that love was not uppermost in my mind
in terms of things that I wanted to send her.
I could think of this hot firey place I would joyfully have sent her
and happily used my size 12's to help her get there.
So I'm thinkin' love, I'm thinkin' about the Fred Sanford kind of love.
[audience laughing]
And then I remember reading about auras, the energy that surrounds every living thing,
and I remember reading that pink was the color that represent- well represented divine love
and I figure we definitely need some divine love up in here.
So mentally I enveloped her in a bubble of pink light
and I started pumping pink in her butt.
I mean I was pumping pink, I was pumping pink, I was pumpin' pink.
I worked up a sweat pumpin' pink.
[audience laughing]
I did that for about 10, 15 minutes.
The woman comes over to me, totally different demeanor, totally different tone of voice,
"Are your friends in the restaurant?"
I'm from Chicago originally, I be suspicious.
I'm like, "What's up?" Am I getin' set up or what? What's going on?"
She said, "I don't know"- I said, "I don't know, you wouldn't let me go see."
She says, "Well go, please go."
And she personally escorted me into the restaurant.
And as I was walking into the restaurant and looked back at her...
I realized I had experienced the power of love.
So that was 1989.
1992 I would become a professional storyteller.
I went to one of the storytelling groups,
Community Storytellers, in Los Angeles and I told this story.
And after the meeting people were coming up and telling me what a wonderful story it was.
"Oh, that's a great story, Michael, that's a wonderful story."
And, uh, just so you know I am someone who is not uncomfortable receiving praise,
you might want to remember that for later.
[audience laughing]
So I'm like, "Yes, yes, I'm bad, I'm all that, oh, yeah."
But this one friend seemed to be particularly moved by the story.
A couple of months later after this meeting my friend comes up to me says,
"Michael, Michael, let me tell you what happened."
It seems that at her job her boss had made it her personal mission
to give my friend unholy hell each and every day
and this particular day my friend decided she was gonna do the pink thing.
She would send love, if not love, she would send light, if not light,
you don't send those "I want to choke you" thoughts, you do the best you can.
So she'd been doing that all morning.
All the employees were sitting together at lunch in the little lunchroom.
My friend sitting here talking to someone across the table,
the boss sitting next to her talking to someone there,
all of a sudden the boss turned to her and started to engage her
in pleasant complimentary conversation.
And from that day on there was no more mess between 'em.
The power of love.
Now, I'm gonna fess up. I passed that particular test, I'll take a pass/fail.
I have flunked quite a few.
But it is worth the effort.
And that's the end of that one.
[audience clapping]