Challenge #3 - Care

During tonight's dark hours, the time will change.  Well, time really won't change, but our response to time will. How silly, really.  We've come up with a way to spring forward and fall backward, just so we can stay outside and play for an extra hour.

Despite our crafty manipulations, once in awhile we get an abrupt reminder that Our Creator is actually the One standing guard over the Universe and is calling the shots.  Japan is a perfect example.  Two days ago their nuclear power plants were functioning fine, and this morning the situation's potential is more than dire.  Two days ago their country flourished.  Today it is devastated. 

Fear can't help but seep into our heads and hearts as we watch the horrors unfold on our planet.  After all, no matter how much we like to separate ourselves into little categories, we are still humans......all one big family.  Our typical lives are unique according to the societal divisions and locations, but we still have the same bodily functions, needs, and feelings.  Compassion stirs me to intense sadness, and I wish there was some hands-on way to help, other than donate the dollar.

If we in America feel helpless in not being able to lend the Japanese our assistance, just imagine how helpless the living victims there must feel.  They've been stripped of their personal lives, families, homes, pets, possessions...everything except their next breath....which is ultimately all any of us really have.

My #3 inspirational effort for Lent will be to take a good look at ways I can show others that I care about them and honestly wish their life to be the best it can be.  How can I be thoughtful and respectful.  I try to imagine the Universal Force of Goodness being a great big ball.  Every time we treat the person (or creature) next to us with the respect they deserve, the ball gets bigger and our world gets better.