What is happening? It is now a world
of brother versus brother. Brother in a larger context; not blood and
family lines, but in terms of the human race. That person of a
completely different ethnicity, economic background, or religion is your brother (or sister.) Language is only a small frog
leap, yet many people make it (and other factors) huge mountainous
barriers that separate us. If we accept the challenge to don some
climbing gear and traverse that mountain, we will actually discover
that it is nothing more than a hill, maybe with some weeds poking up
from the ground.
The language barrier has been broken
time and again by many people (famous and little-known.) Religious
differences have been set aside in those rare, beautiful moments when
people just come together to love each other. To love one another not
as a Christian, or a Muslim. Not as an American, or a Russian. Not as
a “minority” or “one of the few who still has some class.”
Individuals and groups of people have joined together to celebrate
each other; that they all have a beating human heart.
Everyone has fears, hopes, dreams,
desires, strengths, weaknesses, talents, faults; experiences that can
teach someone something. Everyone has a person that they love to
pieces. At the end of the day, when the sun descends and darkness
falls, everyone has the same thoughts of a goal they wish to achieve,
or a person they would do anything for, or a fear that keeps needling
at them relentlessly. So why do we tend to think that we are all so
different?
Look at the next stranger you see.
What do you notice? Their race? What kind of clothing they are
wearing? What language they are speaking? Can you look beyond that?
Can you see the essence of the human being; that this person standing
before you is just like you...a person with thoughts and feelings?
If a person upsets you, do you blame
it on their race or ethnicity? Do you blame it on some invented fault
that you imagined for them? If you find a person extremely admirable,
do you attribute it to their being so similar to you? Do you search
for the ways that this person shares some kind of characteristic or
experience with you?
As you drink that second cup of coffee
and skim the side-bar newspaper column about the raging fighting in
some country thousands of miles away that you have very little
knowledge of, can you step back and imagine that the people in this
country are just like you? They get hungry and thirsty. They feel
cold and warmth. They long to be comforted. They get angry and happy.
They are capable of laughing and crying. They breathe in and out,
just like you. They have emotions just like you.
Or is it easier to just turn the page
and skip to the Entertainment section and read about some teen idol's
latest DUI?
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