Harden Not Your Heart

Have you been following the town hall meetings on health care insurance reform? Lots of animated discussions, finger pointing, emotion and anger. Lost in all of this on both sides are people capable of speaking the truth. Even today, while dispelling the rumors of government "death panels", President Obama twice made reference to AARP supporting the health care legislation when in fact they have not endorsed anything other than the notion we need to make some changes. They corrected his misstatement this afternoon through a press release. Probably not a "read my lips" moment, but it does make you wonder if anyone in the debate can be trusted.

I'd like to see more compassion in the public square, less finger pointing and more honest dialogue. Who is going to lead us down this rosy path? In truth, probably no one except you, the individual determined to do right by others.

Today, I was at an abbey in Connecticut for morning Mass. Besides the resident nuns a dozen people showed up at the countryside setting to receive the Eucharist. Two of the communicants were a mom and her mentally retarded daughter. After Mass the mom went into the gift shop on the grounds to ask the store clerk if she could use the bathroom as her daughter, her mentally retarded daughter, was about to lose control of her bowels. The store clerk at the abbey responded by saying "We don't usually allow anyone to use the bathroom...but I'll let you use it this time."

What was the point of making such beautiful people grovel? Had this store clerk really wanted to do right by others, she would have recognized that a special mom taking care of a special daughter was in need and wouldn't have included the conditional phrase. My sense is very few people visit the gift shop at the abbey during the week, and here was a perfect opportunity for the person at this religious institute to engage in a Christian way with a devout mother. Instead, the opportunity was wasted by making a person who has sacrificed her life for a daughter unable to care for herself feel put out by asking simply for access to a bathroom no one else would use that day. Why?

We need to soften our hearts and place more trust in each other. We need to think more about what we can do for each other instead of what we can take away from each other. We need to be honest with each other.

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