What Have We Become?

“You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.” ~ Thomas Merton

I was awake early this morning with many tasks to complete.  I received a text from a new friend concerned because she had heard there had been a shooting with fatalities on my street.  I had not heard of this.  I was outside reading her text; my street and neighborhood were quiet, and the only action I had seen were buses traveling to pick up children who were anxious for school to be over, and adults who were heading to work.  As for me, I had been kneeling quietly at my tree in my front yard pulling weeds away that had overgrown my flowers.  As I pulled the tattered gloves off of my hands, I noticed there were three fingers that were covered and embedded in mud.  Yep, you guessed it.  There were three holes I had noticed earlier in the fingers of the garments.  I quickly checked the text from my friend and then looked up a local news station on my phone as I sat on the step outside.  I pulled up the story she was referring to and shook my head.  It wasn't even 9 AM and yet more lives lost in our city due to more violence.  I quickly responded to her text and assured her that the shooting was not on my block, but several blocks north of me, so far up that I could not see or hear any of the emergency personnel working.  I thanked her for caring enough to check on me and she responded by saying she felt bad for starting my day off with negativity.  I could only respond that my day started off early with pup kisses and that now I knew what God wanted me to pray for that day.  She responded back with a prayer request for her.  What a privilege for someone I barely know to ask me to pray for them! 

How dismal we can be sometimes in our outlook. Just like those three fingers that were muddied from the holes in my glove, sometimes we get holes in our souls.  We allow the negativity to seep in and muddy us on the inside, tainting our vision and our view.  Instead, we should allow it to point us back to our Father for direction.  Yep, still working on this one too….big time!

I loved listening to the music of DC Talk growing up.  Ok, who am I fooling?  I still love it, even though those artists have since split and formed other groups of their own.  They had a song called, “What Have We Become?”  I made the mistake of looking at the Facebook comments under the article about the murders this morning, and I found myself asking that same question.  People are so quick to judge and blame and that is a HUGE source of irritation to me.  There is definitely a time and place to evaluate and break things down, so we can improve our processes in different areas, but we can go too far in the fault finding.  OK, my soapbox speech for the day is….drum roll please……. The answers do not lie solely in gun control debates, or in pointing fingers of city leaders not doing enough, or even in the seemingly crime ridden areas of our city.  While conversations about these topics are all good and do need to be discussed, we need to look closer, we need to look deeper…..not at just what is happening around us and how others are responding to it…….but taking a good look at ourselves.  Why do we always expect someone else to be the problem solvers in our society?  

Where do we place our hope?  Instead of pointing fingers and expecting others to solve our problems, why can't the change start with us….one person at a time?  What kind of neighbor are we?  Are we invested in our fellow human beings?  A great example is last night when my car failed to start several times at a park with my pups.  A few young men stopped to help me out (yes, I do realize how old I sound in wording it like that), and didn't leave until friends had arrived to help me out.  I gave them a huge thanks.  It planted a tiny hope that kindness still existed among strangers. 

It seems simple, really, but we live in a day where we are so individualized, that we hardly stop to speak to other people any more….use common courtesy with strangers, like please and thank you.  I stayed outside intentionally this morning to say good morning to the men who picked up my trash and hauled it away.  I also intentionally told them thank you and that I hoped their day was starting off right.  You know what they told me?  They said it already had because someone went out of their way to thank them.  One person at a time….you never know the difference you can make in someone’s day by stopping and being intentional with them. 

        Of course, I am not asking people to go out and do things outside of the realm of safety with people we do not know…..but will say that I dare you today to go out of your way for someone.  I have the hope of Christ in me.  Isn't it about time that others noticed?  Do you have that same hope?  If they can't see the difference in me, then I am a very poor ambassador indeed for the First Love of my life.  It’s time to stop expecting everyone else to do it all for us.  Time to step it up….time to back up our words with action.  If we truly love our Lord, then we are called to love our neighbors too.  ALL of them.  All of the time.  Nope, I’ve not perfected it either, I’ve got a long ways to go, but that doesn't mean I should just sit back and cast blame when things go wrong in my city and community.  It means, where have we gone wrong?  What have we become?  What does God want us to become?  What will it take for us to get there?  Take the first step, do something today, even if it’s giving a smile, a handshake, a thanks, a prayer.  We’ve got our work cut out for us.

We're called to be salt and light by the Maker of Heaven and Earth.  I'll leave you with HIS words today.  Let yourself be loved today by the Giver of Life....then pass it on.  (I added the bold and caps for emphasis): 

¹³ “YOU ARE the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

¹⁴ “YOU ARE the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵ Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. ¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in Heaven.” ~ Matthew 5:13-16