Kidney Stones, Connecticut, & a Little Perspective

I had only heard the news of the shootings in Connecticut, the shootings of the police officers in Memphis, and the stabbings in China second-hand last Friday. I actually read the reports while in the emergency room with my wife and her kidney stone in the wee hours of Saturday morning.

I shouldn't have read the responses to the news reports. While many readers were simply offering condolences, others went directly to the now-expected political rhetoric in favor of gun control. Then against gun control. It didn't take long for the sorrow of the families and of the communities where they took place to become background noise. How sad.

Our agendas seem so important to us. Social media only exaggerates this. To the high school students who weren't exempt from their exams, it seems like the most tragic thing in the world to have to go to school while others don't have to be there. To the adult who has to wait a little longer in traffic or in line at the store, that can be infuriating. On Facebook, links to the tragic stories from last Friday were mixed together with all the perceived "tragedies" on one news feed to offer some stark differences in perspective.

I probably can't offer any perspectives that haven't already been offered on the tragedies from last Friday. I'm just a guy who writes a blog and who, by the way, tends to get frustrated at traffic and long lines in the store. I'm also the husband of a wife with kidney stones and the dad of three good kids with their own agendas. And I'm recovering from a pretty bad (from my perspective) stomach virus.

But here in this little nook of the blogosphere, let me challenge you to something, especially over the next week: Look outside of your own agenda to find someone who will be spending their first Christmas without a loved one and reach out to them with a gift, a card, a note of encouragement -- something to let them know that they aren't forgotten. Follow one of these unique stories here.

Thanks for reading. Even more for acting on what you've read.

4theVoiceless,
Al