Henry Siemens Publisher So where are we now? Things are kind of returning back to normal but not quite. It’s a strange weird kind of thing. It’s almost like it was but it’s not the same at all. We’re coming out of a winter that seemed to have no end. We’ve gone from much too dry to much too wet. Those kinds of weather things, while stressful, have always been there. Sit down and talk to anyone over the age of 10 and they remember better or worse times depending on the conversation. That’s not what I’m talking about. We go for a walk and see hateful messages scrawled along the pathways around town. There’s a scary war in Ukraine that touches many of us uncomfortably closely. A young man murders 10 innocent people in Buffalo just because they look different than he does. Another young man goes into a school and kills 19 kids. None of it makes any sense. It seems that we’ve collectively lost any ability to consider anything that is not exactly the same as us.
LAST WORD
It doesn’t matter where you fall on any faith or political or lifestyles choice spectrum, we’ve decided that everything is about ME. My rights. My ideas. My way. If you don’t think like I do, YOU are wrong. If you don’t look like I do, YOU don’t belong. If you don’t believe what I do, YOU are a bigot or worse. . . . and just when it all seems to be too much, we run into an initiative like Pay It Forward May and we are reminded again how great our community is when we stop thinking just about ourselves. People loving on people. Neighbour helping neighbour. People looking for ways they can to do something (anything) nice for someone else. It’s the simple stuff that makes the difference. Some people bought coffee for the next person in line. Others mowed the lawn for someone just because. Businesses and churches organized community fundraisers and cleanups and ‘free for everyone’ bbqs. People fell all over themselves trying to do nice things for one another. No one cared if you were vaccinated or not. No one cared what you believed (or didn’t believe). No one cared what your thoughts were around
mandates. No one cared how you dressed or how you looked. That’s how we rebuild communities… by thinking ‘what can I do?’… and then doing it. That’s how we heal… by considering others before ourselves. That’s easy to say but way harder to live out. In fact, it’s impossible to live out if we don’t interact with people. It’s too easy to pass judgement if you’ve never talked to someone. Get together and listen at least twice as much as you talk and watch what happens. It’s way harder to hate someone after you’ve had a real conversation with them. The sun is out and it’s finally warming up. Maybe we should get outside and visit with our neighbours and find out who they are and what’s going on in their lives. Let’s celebrate our differences rather than be scared of them.
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life in the valley
