Touching Bases as Fellow Members of the Human Community

 One of the things that I love about writing is to sit in front of my keyboard with feelings and thoughts that are running through my heart and mind. Things that are stirring me to reflect upon and share what is going on within this world of reflection. I have a need to share ‘what’s what’ with me with others, hence my blog and my relationship with the Mindful Word. This need to share is a part of my sense that we are all in this together. We are all a part of the human community.

 

Today I am living with the fact that there are people walking our streets who are hungry, sleeping on the streets in the rain, without a roof over their heads, without medical care…A larger than believable portion of these folks are those who have served in the armed forces, people who were willing to give up their lives in the service to their county.   

 

It used to be said that individuals in such a life space bring this upon themselves. They wouldn’t be in this place IF they only acted responsibility, if they got a job, ifthey stayed away from drugs or alcohol.’ Run that by a Marine who lost a hand or his hearing in combat, who received a medal of valor for his service to his country who finds himself living on the streets.

 

Judgments about others are cheap, easy to dispense and generally off the charts in being an accurate reflection about who that other person is. What about those who are born into poverty, are afflicted by medical needs that cannot be taken care of in their childhood because there wasn’t enough money to pay for such care? People who have been nutritionally and emotionally without food and emotional support all of their lives? 

 

What is it that possesses a person to put down someone else who is going through the dark valleys of emotional and or physical limitation and pain? It is my experience that usually those of us who put down others do so because of the sense of limitation we feel, our experience of pain and the suffering that we experience in our daily life that allow us to identify with these fellow members of our human family. And we want to distance ourselves from anything that reminds us of our unmet needs and suffering.

 

There are two things that I feel deeply within myself. The first, ‘there, but by the Grace of God, go I.’ I could have been born with some sort of physical or intellectual limitation.  I could have been born into poverty. I could have been born in a part of the world that can’t feed its children or citizens. In short, anyone we point fingers at and are critical of, could be you or me, by the accident of birth. Again, ‘there, but by the Grace of God, go I.’

 

The second thing that I believe deeply is that our task in life is to treat others as we would want to be treated. If we embraced these two life paths, we would be able to address and solve any problem that we find in our human community.

 

Your feelings and thoughts are welcome…

Namaste…