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One of the things my kids love about this place is all the kid-oriented events and opportunities. (By opportunities, I mean chances to do things, like service things or outdoor nature things or just...doing stuff to change the world a little at a time.) Sometimes they get to meet interesting people, too. Like tonight. My oldest son, 13, and I got to hear an interesting speaker tonight. His mother lives in our neighborhood, and they asked if he'd come up and talk to the teenagers here. The guy is my age now, but when he was 16, he went to cut a Christmas tree out on his family's ranch in Way Out in the Mountains, Idaho. He climbed the tree to cut the top off, and in the process, the branches he was standing on broke, and he fell and broke his neck. He was with a friend or he would have died--the friend left him (at -15 degrees, in the dark) to get help. Luckily, one of the guy's older sisters was a registered nurse, and so she knew what to do. It still took two hours to find him on the hillside and get him to the hospital. (I found it most telling that this was Idaho in that they didn't call 911 first--they got him, then brought him to the hospital. I'm sure it was the fastest thing they could do.)
Anyway, he went from being this great athlete to being quadraplegic. We saw a video of him in essentially a Belgian waffle maker that would turn him over every so often to keep his circulation going. He passed around a head brace that they drilled into his skull to keep his head and neck straight. It looked like a medieval torture device (and I have seen them in person, so I know what I'm talking about!) They eventually got some good physical therapists who took some chances on him, and today he walks and can move all his limbs and has married and has quite a few children and a good job. It was actually quite amazing to see this video (he was featured on the TV show Rescue 911 back in the 80s) and see where he is today.
One of the things that I particularly liked about his story was how his family and his whole town rallied around him. People in his church, people in other churches, and people who didn't even particularly want much to do with religion were all praying for him and visiting him and tutoring him and really just doing all they could to support him. It reminded me of the time in Germany when one of my daughter's classmates had a rare blood disorder and needed a stem cell transplant. To do that, they needed an extremely close blood match, much more detailed than merely type O negative or whatever. I remember the day we got off the bus to give our sample and found the line stretched out the door of the school to the road, and all the way down to the next street. So many people who looked like they came from so many different backgrounds, beliefs, ways of life. Maybe they wouldn't all get along in some other setting. But in this one thing--this one important thing they could do for someone else--everyone felt connected. Everyone wanted Luisa and her little brother Emil to get well.
I'm not sure where I'm going with all this, maybe that miracles do happen, and people can be part of them, and stepping outside of your everyday self to work with other people for something good/miraculous, erases the need to fight. I think that perhaps only when you find the common thread you share between you can you fully enjoy another person's differences.
So maybe that's something to think about this week. Search for the things you share in common with people who are otherwise strange to you. Step out of your comfort zone to help someone else. Make the world a better place.
Anyway, he went from being this great athlete to being quadraplegic. We saw a video of him in essentially a Belgian waffle maker that would turn him over every so often to keep his circulation going. He passed around a head brace that they drilled into his skull to keep his head and neck straight. It looked like a medieval torture device (and I have seen them in person, so I know what I'm talking about!) They eventually got some good physical therapists who took some chances on him, and today he walks and can move all his limbs and has married and has quite a few children and a good job. It was actually quite amazing to see this video (he was featured on the TV show Rescue 911 back in the 80s) and see where he is today.
One of the things that I particularly liked about his story was how his family and his whole town rallied around him. People in his church, people in other churches, and people who didn't even particularly want much to do with religion were all praying for him and visiting him and tutoring him and really just doing all they could to support him. It reminded me of the time in Germany when one of my daughter's classmates had a rare blood disorder and needed a stem cell transplant. To do that, they needed an extremely close blood match, much more detailed than merely type O negative or whatever. I remember the day we got off the bus to give our sample and found the line stretched out the door of the school to the road, and all the way down to the next street. So many people who looked like they came from so many different backgrounds, beliefs, ways of life. Maybe they wouldn't all get along in some other setting. But in this one thing--this one important thing they could do for someone else--everyone felt connected. Everyone wanted Luisa and her little brother Emil to get well.
I'm not sure where I'm going with all this, maybe that miracles do happen, and people can be part of them, and stepping outside of your everyday self to work with other people for something good/miraculous, erases the need to fight. I think that perhaps only when you find the common thread you share between you can you fully enjoy another person's differences.
So maybe that's something to think about this week. Search for the things you share in common with people who are otherwise strange to you. Step out of your comfort zone to help someone else. Make the world a better place.
