A thought...

I was told to take this quote: "I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen." (John Steinbeck) and then write something that somehow related to this quote. So that's what I did. 

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America. The land of the free and the place where everyone can be treated as an equal. 

Or so we say. 

But so often I hear those words and find that there is nothing backing them up. We say those words, and yet we still treat people as unequal, as inferiors. Those of a different race, those with less money, those who aren’t in as good health as we are. We treat them differently. That is our society, our culture. But there are some people who rise above that, there are those who treat everyone as equals, no matter what their circumstance in life. And those are the people I notice. Those are the people I remember.

I saw you, Grandpa, when you treated the immigrant workers like equals. They were poor, dirty from their hard work, and they were the ones who did the jobs that no one else wanted to do. They were different, and because of their differences, they were not accepted. And yet it never occurred to you to treat them differently than you treated anyone else. You invited them into your home and you talked to them. You talked to them and treated them in a way that society didn’t talk to or treat them. I will always remember that.

I saw you too, Dad, when, on your 51st birthday we were walking downtown and you bought some food for a homeless person on the corner and stopped to talk to him. It didn’t bother you that maybe he hadn’t showered for a while and was missing most of his teeth. Despite your differences, you still saw him as someone made in God’s image. It's something I'll never forget, the day you spent your birthday assisting and getting to know someone who, in the eyes of the world, was so different from you.

I saw you, little girl, at VBS. You gave a gift to the girl in the wheelchair. The girl in the wheelchair is the one who can’t talk or really respond to anything at all. I was sitting right behind her, and I saw the whole thing. You walked up to her and handed her a gift. It was a pretty little bracelet. You also gave her a card, which one of the adults showed to her. I was able to read what it said from my spot. “Dear Amelia, I hope you get better soon. We should have a play date sometime! I think you’re sweeter than candy.” The words you wrote brought tears to my eyes, and it wasn't just because it was something nice that you did – it was because you were sincere. You knew that Amelia was in a wheelchair and that Amelia doesn't really recognize who you are. But you treated her as someone just like you. Gave her a gift. Asked her for a play date sometime. Your small act of kindness affected me. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to affect me, but it did. You showed me that our love for others should not stop at those who are the exact same as us. You loved someone that the world would find hard to love.

There are people that we look at our whole lives and we think we know those people, but until we observe how those people act around those who are not their equals, we have never really seen or known them.