I am writing this during the week following the landfall of Hurricane Harvey on the Texas gulf coast and the devastating flooding that occurred in the wake of that storm.
The images were staggering as we saw lakes and rivers appear in places that had never been flooded. It will take years to rebuild and reestablish the many communities that have suffered.
We also saw something else. We saw ordinary men and women come to the rescue. A volunteer navy of bass boats, rafts, even pilots and helicopters that came from other states to pull people from calamity and what would be certain death. I heard one newscaster say, “We saw Mother Nature at her worst and humanity at her best.” I saw a post on Facebook that said, “We need to build a statue of normal people in bass boats rescuing their neighbors and strangers.”
We’ve been living in the USA with a lot of division and polarization — left against right, blue against red, black against white, straight against gay. There has been a lot of name calling, mud-slinging and hatred from all sides. It has made me sad.
What we have witnessed so far in the aftermath of Harvey; people helping people regardless of color, gender, race, language, sexual orientation, economic status and more. The media seems to divide us by these things. Perhaps they believe it makes for good television. They are wrong. As painful as many of the images coming from Texas have been, there has been inspiration in kindness, mercy, compassion and love for one another. That is worth watching.
Reflect: Pause for a moment, give thanks, make a contribution, help someone you’ll be glad you did.
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