What Is Right With People?

We are saying good-bye to September today.  The months seem to blend together and yet are divided by the elements and events of our lives.  Last September I was one week out of cancer surgery and recovering well at home.  This past year has been a bit of a roller coaster ride and continues I must say with all that comes at us from the political arena and the shootings, the stabbings, the bombs, the train and plane crashes. The police, the lone gunman, the radicalized, the broken all fill our screens and our minds with images we would rather forget.  My words are often an echo from one day to the next..........."What is wrong with people!?!"

It is too easy to focus on the worst of the worst laid out before us, so today I need to ask, what is right with people?  I can't help but think about the people in the most recent tragedy in New Jersey, who reached out quickly to help others even though they believed the glass ceiling was coming down and could land on them.  I remember the Somali citizens coming together in St. Cloud to condemn what one of their community had done in the mall that night...stabbing innocent people as he acted out his own twisted thinking on people shopping.  I remember those who went around in their cars praying over Charlotte, N.C. while other church leaders came between the police and those protesting and rioting.  I even remember our family during this political season, who gather together as one, yet vote both "sides" in the elections.  We don't always understand each other's perspectives, but we do respect each other and the right to vote each person holds.

What is right with people?  On Friday nights Steve Hartman always has a short segment at the end of the CBS national news that warms our hearts as he shares a story of what is right with people in our country. Joel and I try not to miss it.  It leaves us with a smile and a renewed hope for our country.

Forgiveness, honesty, understanding, service, love, peace, respect, encouragement, and so much more.  This is what is right with people.  And we need to center ourselves in the midst of all that. There are so many good, honest, loving, faith-full, forgiving, serving, respectful people in our country, in our world.  Oh, Lord, let me be listed among them.

Today, as I deliberately shifted my thinking from what is wrong with people to what is right with people the world came into balance once again, and my equilibrium returned.  It is a good place to be.