My mind and heart have not been “at peace” over the past few weeks. Our country continues to experience mass and individual shootings which, when added to horrendous past episodes, suggest hate and racial injustice abound. In addition, several friends have recently experienced pain, heartache, and loss. All of this has weighed heavily on my spirit.
The last At Peace post spoke of loving one another through prayer. I stand by that approach and I have spent hours these past weeks praying for families of those impacted by others who hate and/or make enormous mistakes in their life. I also pray for those like me who are impacted vicariously by these situations. Many people do not know these victims, but literally “feel” for them.
My response to all this has been to try to be useful. I do believe my prayers do help others, and myself. I hope people appreciate being told that they have been praying for – so in the past weeks, I’ve told them.
I thought that I would offer help where I could. I have reached out to people in my life who are scared and confused as they “emerge” from the pandemic – so I offered them an invitation to talk with me about their concerns.
I spent more time with my grandkids. They teach me, at age 67, to see things I have not seen in a long time. I took my three small grandkids (one, age three and five-year-old twins) to the playground last weekend. The playground was crowded with children. My crew ran quickly toward the slides and I heard the twins say to one another, “Let’s make a new friend.” Hmm, I thought, what an uplifting goal!
I had a chance to teach. My grandson, one of the twins, came to me after about thirty minutes of play and said that his “new friend” hit him. My grandson was not angry or hurt physically, but seemed confused. “Why would he do that?” he asked.
Moments prior, I had a brief conversation with the mother of the alleged pugilist. She told me he was autistic and not very social. I also heard her tell her son, “hands are for hugs, not hits.”
I tried my best to explain to my five-year-old grandson what happened. I explained that some children don’t know they are hurting people when they do things like hitting. And sometimes, we just need to forgive that person and try again to be a friend (perhaps with closer grandad supervision). I even stole the “hands are for hugs” line to suggest he not retaliate. My grandson rushed back to the slides.
What can the playground teach us about the world? For certain, life is not fair. And, all of us need to think through how we intend to respond to perceived unfairness. I’m proud of my crew. They made new friends and, the one at least, began to understand one way to deal with hurt feelings.
I’m wishing and praying that our readers will be “at peace” in the coming weeks.
At Peace 