January 15, 2010
Taking the Time to Make a Difference
Getting used to the cold, and other conditions
BY PAUL R. LEINGANG
(Listen to Paul read this column | Weekly podcast)
It has become an annual experience. It is a physical reality, maybe, or maybe it is a trick of the mind.
On a recent sunny morning in the middle of our southern Indiana winter, I sat in my car and hooked up my seat and shoulder belts and prepared to start the engine.
It’s not so cold, I thought. Only 22 degrees.
Two months ago or less I would have been shivering and complaining about the extreme cold. But after single digits for a few nights, a sunny morning at 22 degrees felt very nice.
We seem to have a few more minutes of daylight, too, so the annual conversion is in fact happening once again. For people like me, those of us who don’t like winter, things are indeed getting better.
I know winter is not over. I know we may very well have more snow and more cold weather. But things are getting better.
I suspect there are many variations of this experience. My friends in areas far north of us experience much colder weather, but I suspect something similar happens. Perhaps, a calm, sunny day above zero might feel good after sub-zero days and nights.
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This annual experience is leading me to reflect on something unrelated to the weather: how is it that we can get used to unpleasant, uncomfortable, or even evil?
I remember the first time I saw a family living in a dirt-floor home with broken windows, in a home on the outskirts of metropolitan St. Louis. I remember the first time I saw a family living in a home with a thatched roof held up by saplings driven into the ground, in rural Mexico. After a while, it is easier to forget about them, and others like them. After a while, it may even be possible to step over people sleeping under cardboard and newspapers on the sidewalk.
Are things getting better? Or is my ability to see suffering becoming less focused?
I remember the time as a college student when I went with a chaplain’s assistant to visit a young man in the hospital, a man who had been in a serious industrial accident. I remember having a pleasant conversation with him. I remember even more how shocked I was a week later, when I found out he had died from his injuries.
As a reporter, I remember interviewing police and fire officials at the scenes of traffic accidents, fires, drownings and natural disasters. Things get easier as the years go by.
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One of the things we must never get used to is the conclusion often prevalent in our society, that people are always somehow responsible for their own misfortunes.
That family should just move out of that slum. He was driving too fast and should have known better.
Of course, people must be accountable for their own actions, and of course, people must realize that poor decisions may bring personal disaster. But I can’t help but think of the common wisdom at the time of Jesus, when everyone knew that leprosy was the result of sin on the part of the leper or the leper’s father.
Jesus healed 10 lepers, according to one account. He didn’t ask which ones were deserving, or which ones should have known better. Nor did he condemn them for the sin others were certain must be present.
Following Jesus may lead some to shelter the homeless, and others to confront the city that does not enforce building codes and landlords who fail to provide a decent place to live.
Following Jesus should challenge all of us to examine our relationships with our brothers and sisters, and to see each of them as a peson deserving of dignity and human respect.
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What evils have you gotten used to?
Isn’t it time to make a change? In yourself and in the community where you live? What a difference you could make!
Comments are welcome at office@cfm.org or the Christian Family Movement, P.O. Box 925, Evansvsille, IN 47706-0925