Bond

So there are these moments that you can specifically remember for the rest of your life and no matter how old you become you will always be able to treasure them. I guess that's where grandparents get all of their story telling from. Profound examples of how the world for one moment stopped and paid attention to you.

I am not actually citing an example of how that happened to me in this. I just feel that through all of my writing over all of the years I think about how at this moment, something so profound, so provocative, without measure, came in and touched your soul. It was so important that I had to write it down. Because it happened to  only you, there is no gainsay from others because it's your very own. Your experiences are only ours. The real privilege is when our experiences are shared with another. From jumping out of a plane together to defying death, when we can relive those experiences with someone our bond is even closer knitted. 

I am reminded of my trip to Prague over the summer. My friend Lauren had emailed me saying that she was doing this summer camp and would I be interested in helping out. I immediately said yes! and went through the whole interview process and such, got the job and had to buy the plane ticket, set everything up with traveling and rendezvous and yadda yadda yadda. The thing was that Lauren and I weren't really that close. We worked together before in summer camps but not so closely and not so well. We sort of had a good distant relationship and that was all. I was afraid that she was going to know everyone and kind of leave me to fend for myself (in a country where I was teaching English to non-speaking children) so I was pretty apprehensive.

Thing was that because of this experience, Lauren and I became insanely close and now is one of my very best friends. The whole two weeks were spent, laughing, talking, joking around (there was some work in there somewhere) and very much talks of how the world works. When you have two weeks together you learn so much about each other and go through so many of the same things that you have no choice but to have a link to each other.

Those moments are so precious and worth remembering and writing about. I just think that with everything going the way it is these days, we want to be able to remember our faith, our love, our compassion towards others. Write about it, preach about it, blog about it, we must have something to always hold on to. We are not so primitive in this day in age when all we think about is taking from another, hurting another, being jealous of what others have. We claim ourselves the most intelligent race and yet we gratify ourselves by beating up another. Rise above this. Be more than this. We can treasure our memories for a lifetime. In the end of your journey on this earth, do we want to recall the memories of long trips cross country over Europe or of hate and bigotry and war? With our last breath, I would hope that we want to say, "I love you" to our family and friends and not, "one day, you too will die!" Think of the message that we need to put out there. Be better than this. It is the only way our country will continue to survive.