Connections Don't Stop at Borders
NOR DOES COMPASSION
It’s amazing how much anguish in Syria or Turkey looks like anguish here in the states. The appearance of ruins from bombings, floods, hurricanes or earthquakes may differ quite a bit but the expressions of sorrow vary very little from place to place or culture to culture. When catastrophe strikes, be it “natural” or from the worst of human behaviors, there will always be people that come out of the woodwork to help. Some at significant risk to themselves.
Maybe twenty ago, while driving through Massachusetts on the Interstate, I came across a few parked cars and observers on the shoulder. They were pointing at an RV lying on its side down the embankment. By the time I reached the smoking camper, a thirtyish-year-old guy was dragging the third and final person out through a hole in the windshield - which he had made with his fist. As he wrapped his T-shirt around his very bloody hand, I marveled at his courage and commitment to getting the people out before the RV burst into flames. What an admirable human being!
As I drove away from that accident I wondered. If I were the first to have arrived, would I have had the courage or strength to do what he had done? That question left me feeling inadequate, but who knows. Maybe if I had heard the screaming, while seeing smoke, my adrenalin would have enabled me to do the right thing. And then I questioned, why were there half a dozen people observing, instead of helping? To this day I don’t know the answer, but I do know that people all over the world are unique and that the best any of us can hope for in such a crisis - is to draw from our deepest well.
In the volunteer work I’ve done in the United States, Latin America, and Ethiopia, I’ve noticed that volunteers have one thing in common. They all come from “Everywhere.” It’s a human thing to respond to suffering. But it doesn’t stop there. Pets can likewise respond to the needs of their masters. Service dogs get a lot of training with tasks that enable their owners to become more independent. However, neither they nor therapy dogs have to be taught when to put their head on the lap of their emotionally hurting master. That would just be another example of the connections that tie all of us together.