Once in Damascus years ago, when I was strolling along the street called Straight -- wondering whether it is truly the most ancient street in the world that has served continuously as a marketplace -- I watched as a man who was riding slowly through the crowd on a bicycle with a basket of oranges precariously balanced on the handlebars was bumped by a porter so bent with a heavy burden that he had not seen him. The burden dropped, the oranges were scattered and a bitter altercation broke out between the two men.

After an angry exchange of shouted insults, as the bicyclist moved toward the porter with a clenched fist, a tattered little man slipped from the crowd, took the raised fist in his hand and kissed it. A murmur of approval ran through the watchers, the antagonists relaxed, then the people began picking up the oranges and the little man drifted away. I have remembered that as a caring act, an act of devotion there on the street called Straight by a man who might have been a Syrian Muslim, a Syrian Jew or a Syrian Christian.

Author's Note: This personal story by Mr. Kenneth W. Morgan, appeared in a letter to the editor in "The New York Times," January 30, 1991, during the third week of the Persian Gulf War. Mr. Morgan concluded the letter with these words: "Now that our American Bicycle has been bumped and soil supplies are being spilled, and angry, unseemingly insults and threats have been exchanged, and war has broken out with the possibility of the loss of myriad lives while millions stand by in horror, when and where can we turn for someone to kiss the American fist, so we can pick up the pieces and go peacefully together along our way?"

Mr. Morgan also said, in a letter to the author giving permission to print the story in this book: "My reaction to the episode on the street called Straight, some time later, was regret that I wasn't enough of a Christian to have thought of kissing the fist myself."

Mr. Kenneth W. Morgan is professor of religion emeritus at Colgate University. The story was first published on page 172 of his book "Reaching for the Moon, on Asian Religious Paths," ANIMA BOOKS, 1053 Wilson Avenue, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania 17201.