Reread these short twenty words several times. They may cause you to look differently at the next sad, sour, homeless person you meet. This is a Thursday Thought worth carrying with us.
Nelson Mandela hit it right on target when he said, “What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.”
April is a very earthy month, with Earth Day (today) and National Arbor Day (Friday the 25th). PLUS, we’re in the midst of the season of renewed life, Easter. It’s a marvelous time to think about what we can do for our home, the Earth. No room in your yard for another tree? In my area we have Our City Forest—you probably have such an organization in your area, too. Sign up with them to help with planting projects in your city. Stroll along the banks of a local river, lake, or pond, carrying tools to pick up trash. Spend time around your home, building a birdhouse, creating a habitat in that unused corner of the yard, or planting non-thirsty plants. Take your family to an Earth Day event, or follow up on an eco-activity you learned at one. This month, begin a new habit: at least once a day get out of the house and smell the roses and the fresh air, listen to birdsongs, feel cool clean lake water on your toes, bite into a mouth-pleasing, messy orange, watch cloud-swans glide through clear, blue skies. Then, determine to keep all these available for future generations.
I’ve been reading the signs on the news coverage of the recent San Francisco Walk for Life. A common one is “We’re the Pro-Life Generation.” The positive message and fact that they were doing something to spread the message really appealed to me, because I believe that all human life is sacred.
For the same reason, though, the signs make me uncomfortable. I’ve been wondering if those same people and same signs–maybe with some other action to back them up–will ever appear outside a prison at execution time. Or at a City Council meeting where upscale housing decisions are being made that will put more people out on the streets to become ill and endangered. Or at restaurant garbage cans where perfectly good food is thrown out, food that could feed hungry families at shelters and soup kitchens. Or at a legislative session that, instead of fixing the food stamp program lawmakers are cutting it, meaning more poor children experience malnutrition, hunger, and food insecurity. Or outside nursing homes where the sick and elderly are mistreated, abused, neglected, and in an environment that hastens their deaths.
I applaud the anti-abortion people for their demonstrations (except for the bad apples who feel it their duty to hound and humiliate rather than inform, encourage, and pray). Unfortunately, too many of them think that stopping abortions, therefore preserving pre-born human life, is all there is to being Pro-Life. Those people need to change their label to what it is–“Anti-Abortion,” which sounds negative but is more descriptive. All the rest, the true believers in life, should expand their conviction toward honoring and preserving human life–from womb to tomb.
I don’t know who said this, but I really like the take on life that this quote expresses.
Life is an echo.
What you send out—comes back.
What you sow—you reap.
What you give–you get.
What you see in others—exists in you.
Remember life is an echo
It always gets back to you
So give goodness.
………………..and that’s my Thursday Thought……………..
Einstein was one smart human being!
“One hundred times a day I remind myself that my personal and professional life depends on the fruit of the work of other men, living and dead, and that I should make every effort to give in the same measure in which I have received and am receiving.”– Albert Einstein
[Something to chew on for a Thursday Thought.]
Today, I watched a person begin a new life. I first knew him when he was in my high school English class, far more interested in the girl sitting next to him than in the heroine of the novel I was trying to teach. Now, after many years in prison, he is free again. The first thing he did was to thank God for his freedom. Then he went to the cemetery to visit loved ones whose funerals he couldn’t attend. He arrived at my house around 11:30 to thank my husband and me for never losing faith in him and keeping in touch..and to play with the dog, which he’d longed to do for a long time. After a short visit he was off to Los Angeles to his temporary home with the sisters at The Francisco Homes.
He spent his time Inside finishing his B.A. and taking other correspondence courses in Bible and theology. He was active in his Chapel and refused to take part in any violence, including declining to strike back either the time he was stabbed or the time he was beaten. He made it a point to help other inmates and to be a peacemaker between races. In short, he spent his years growing up, trying to atone for his crime, and learning to be a responsible, caring adult.
Is he a saint? Of course not. He did something bad, and he served the time the judge gave him. When family and friends dropped off, as they almost always do after a year or so, he made new ones through letters. Those of us in contact with him saw the changes he made, all for the good.
The point is, he’ll have a hard time out here, adjusting to technology that is new to him, making new friends who can get over their fear of ex-cons to get to know him, recovering from sticker-shock when he shops, getting a permanent place to live, getting a job, living a free, law abiding life.
People like him are often shunned by our society. They’re feared, looked down on, avoided. We certainly don’t want our kids around them, even if their crime was not related to children or sex. But why? All of us have experienced the good luck of getting away with speeding, hit-and-run (not sticking around when scratching a car), theft (absent-mindedly not paying for something in the basket), disturbing the peace, tax fraud (fudging on tax returns)—all sorts of things. These people may have done worse, but, unlike us, they got caught. Now we pass judgment on them that’s worse than the court imposed. We forget that they, too, are part of our human family and, as such, their lives have worth, especially those who are working hard at doing right.
I wish my friend luck, because he’ll need it. For the rest of us, I wish expressions of patience, compassion, and, yes, a little basic Golden-Rule love.
I’m not sure who wrote this, but I really like it and want to pass it on. Bookmark this blog or save this off for a tough, frustrating day, when you’ll really need this reminder.
