Many years ago, I was sitting in a Chick-Fil-A outside of Cincinati, OH on my way to Louisville, KY to visit my best friend. As I sat there, I realized how similar & different people are. We share similar fears & hopes. We share similar joys & pains albiet the courses of our individual lives vary from persons & families. Most parents want their kids to grow up and have a better life than they did and most parents want to see their children marry and have families too. It continually is impressed upon my mind how much we are alike in our goals and desires for our families and how little what we look like really matters. We all love, live, and hope for a better future.
With all the craziness going on in the US right now, it would seem that some American’s don’t care about the “neighbors”. Yet, the flooding in Louisiana and West Virginia this summer really showed me how much average American’s really do look past our outward differences. I can’t tell you how many different photos or videos I saw of black and white American’s helping each other. I gives me great hope that a we as a people have and do strive to look past those outward differences. With certain elements in our society right now, they want to focus on our outward appearance and how the amount of melanin we have in our skin makes it impossible to connect with each other.
In the back of my mind, I keep seeing the story of the Good Samaritan play out as I look across the news for America and I can’t help but to have hope that we are a good people, a people who first and foremost want to live our lives and provide for our families. So many times, we help our “neighbors” out when they are in trouble. Compassion can be such a powerful tool to remove barriers and bring understanding to 2 different parties. I can’t help but to think of those Louisiana’s who got flooded out and all the help they provided each other not to mention all the different groups that volunteered time and resources to help.
We are all humans, imperfect beings striving to make our little corner of the world a better place. I hope and desire, and believe that we can one person at a time, one act of service for a stranger, one heart bearing another grief. A good friend on mine recently had a bizarre fire burn down their entire house in less than 30 minutes. Everyone was shocked and they were devastated. I will say that the outpouring of love they received was impressive. So many people from our church, and I am sure that a fair amount of help from the community, provided clothes, a place to live, and many other forms of relief.
We have a great capacity to shape the world around us. We imperfect beings, we can do miracles for each other when we WANT to put forth the effort to make the world a better place.
I know we can!
iron wil
