Back to Basics

I have been attempting to research the world around me as a casual observer to "another planet": seeking information; to understand; to help out in my travels; to know and be known as I wander through each day.  I've seen beauty so deep it breaks my heart in the sunrise God sends to wake us each morning; I've known sorrow to deep to put in words in His tears of rain that water the earth at the close of day.  I've seen compassion and cruelty--brothers stoning brothers in words and actions; calling, "Crucify!" of those they celebrated just yesterday.  I've seen children and animals left out in the cold while so many seek to get ahead; stumbling over them in the "rat race" without so much as a glance; ignoring the arthritic, twisted, gnarled hand reaching up for a morsel of bread in the face we pass on the streets each day.

I look back on my journey to when I would give away my umbrella and walk home laughing in the rain; to returning barefoot because someone needed my shoes more than I did; to getting to work hungry because that person needed my cup of coffee and breakfast and missing one meal wouldn't kill me...but it just might have killed them.  When did I learn to be silent in the face of injustice?  When did I learn to look after myself?  When did fear become more important than helping another on the way?  When did this earth become more important to me than the longing of eternity?
    We did an activity the other day--they put us, as teachers, together, to each build a square having only certain pieces.  The activity wasn't finished until we each could build the same size square.  At first, some of us built our squares and carefully guarded our pieces; we soon realized, we couldn't finish unless we were all willing to work together to help build each person's square.  It impacted me, because in the factions--politicians destroying other politicians; this one calling for the death of that one; this one deciding who deserves his or her time; this one building an empire while slaves are wasting away--I wonder how life would be if we put down our "pieces" and helped to build another's square. Would we find, then, those same pieces coming back to us in more than we had ever hoped or dreamed?  Would we find that the goal wasn't in "being first", but in overcoming TOGETHER; that it's okay to ask for forgiveness and put boundaries against negativity, but while we shut out the negativity, we should never hate or seek to destroy the person who put it there.  We should distance ourselves from abuse; from lies; from violence; from deception; from negativity; from control, but at the same time, leave a bridge that, should that person humbly choose to walk across, they will know that, on the other side, we will help them build a square.
Here's for all the children who cry themselves to sleep, hungry; for the stray animals abandoned to the wild; for the judges and leaders who might have made mistakes...I pray, in me, you won't find destruction.  I pray you know that, if I can ever help you, I'm making a choice, again, to try to be there.  If only with 5 loaves and 2 fishes, I pray I can say with Peter and John, "What I have, I give," and if, in my hands, it is just a drop in the bucket, in His, may it be a river that soothes the troubled heart.