Rogue Wave

"Every human interaction offers you the chance to make things better or to make things worse.  To decide to make things better can cost you bundles of self-interest.  To decide to make things worse generally feels a lot more powerful.  The only problem is that the power rolls away from you like a rogue wave, as the person you slammed into finds someone else to slam into, and so on, and so on.  The good news is that you can set off the same sort of chain reaction with unwarranted kindness.  Kindness is not a bad religion, no matter what name you use for God."

from An Altar in the World
by Barbara Brown Taylor, p. 114-115.