India Red

Haiti

Don't forget to pray for the people in Haiti. I'm ashamed to admit I never know much about what is going on in the world, but it's important to pray if nothing else. Here's a short article that talks about the death toll and some amazing survivors, including a 15-day-old baby: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8477770.stm

“Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man [or woman] availeth much.”
James 5:16

2, 692 Miles From Home . . .

That's pretty far, ain't it? That's even farther than I thought—and yet I could get home in about six hours on an airplane. That . . . is amazing.

For some reason, when Saren first told me that people hate people they fear, I didn't really think that was true. I wonder a lot about where hate and contempt are from, and since she's said that, I have to agree—we hate the things, and the people we fear. You may think that's obvious—well of course you hate someone who you're afraid will kill you—but there are other kinds of fear. We're afraid of being ridiculed, hurt, embarrassed, and we're afraid of failing. Even more often, though, I think we hate people for being different than us. That sounds silly, but I believe it's true. And it's small differences as much as the big ones.

There are a lot of people who hate Central and South Americans. They don't believe they do—in fact—they don't realize at all because a person always believes that he or she, overall, is good, and does not hate. Perhaps hate is a little too strong a word, but prejudice, dislike, or contempt—all seem to me just smaller portions of hate. I can't truly judge what a person feels either, so perhaps my mind's eye is exaggerative.

I'm beginning to lose this thought . . . I guess I just wanted to say that maybe the reason people hate is because they hate to be uncomfortable, they tend to have the idea that their ways are superior to all others—that their way is the right way, that because someone's culture and beliefs are different they are not as good—not as smart, not as important—just wrong and they don't want to discuss it anymore.

It's easy to have a closed mind. It's easy not to imagine what someone else feels or thinks—so much so that it's easier to hate than it is to have compassion or understanding.

There was a student in my Spanish class that said, “I don't understand why we can learn their language, but they won't learn ours.”

“Well, yes, but I think it's harder for them—”

“There are programs for them to learn. They could go to them.”

“Yeah. Well . . . unless they're here illegally . . .”

“Then they shouldn't be here.”

Yeah, but . . . have you ever thought what they're leaving behind? Here in Costa Rica, a teacher gets paid about $2.50 an hour—that's a teacher. I can make more money doing a no-skill job in America. There is an eighty-year-old lady here with two handicapped sons who couldn't afford to buy herself food—there's a woman who was trying to go without water because they couldn't pay the bill for it because of hospital expenses for her sick baby. I don't think people should illegally sneak into another country, but really, can you blame them? And is it really their fault that they are hired instead of Americans, because their employers pay them less? I think there are a lot of immigrants who deserve their jobs more than some Americans who live off unemployment checks because they're unwilling to do dirty-work jobs.

What really startled me is that if she's learning a language, you would assume that she cared about the people she would be trying to speak to. Her tone of voice said otherwise to me.