not society, not we, but ME

Love isn't something you can just say or pray,

loving is serving and giving away.

Nighttime rant! I hate the word SOCIETY. I hate it because it is thrown into generalizations all the time and it is blamed for everything. The problem with that is that most of these people, myself included, are making these statements without taking a step back and remembering- oh, hey, I'm a part of this society I'm talking about. This society is a 'we' and I am included. Oops. We, I, have to stop hiding the ME behind the WE and accept culpability for the problems we, you, I see.

I'm going to bold the blame that we need to face rather than reassign to a vague group, a society, a larger "we."


We, I, can sit around and talk about getting healthcare for everyone all day, but when we- when I - pass the amputee asking for change on the street because he can't get a job, we, I, don't give him change and talk to him and ask him if he is receiving the treatment he needs or whether there is ramp access for him to whatever buildings he needs to go to.

We, I, can talk about Jesus and His love for us and the Bible all day long, but when we- when I - don't put into practice the instructions we have been given by this Man we, I, claim to love and when we, I, are not following the instructions of this Book we claim to be fueled by... what do we become? what do I become
Maybe a resounding gong... maybe a clanging cymbal...

We, I, have to be the answers to our own- to my own - prayers. Pray for the needy, feed the needy. Pray for the naked, clothe the naked. Pray for the hopeless, offer them hope. Pray for the unloved, love them.

Accept that YOU are the problem sometimes. I am the problem when I fail to love, as I do often.

An American soldier, after liberating the Jews, said:

How could we [the world] have stood by and let that happen to them?

so how can we, the world, stand by and let the injustices, the poverty, the horrors afflicted on the "lowliest" of our population happen? how can you stand by and let the injustices, the poverty, the horrors afflicted on the "lowliest" of our population happen? how can I stand by and let the injustices, the poverty, the horrors afflicted on the "lowliest" of our population happen?

Likewise, as it is wrong to assign one's own failures to love to a society, it is also wrong to assign a group's failure to love to its individuals... an example: Planned Parenthood. Clearly I am not a supporter of theirs, but to say that people who support PP are bad is wrong; it's not the people that are bad, it's the misguided compassion/misinformation. Granted, I do think there are a couple people who might not exactly know their stuff and might be too stubborn to acknowledge hard facts that prove the negative effects of abortion on women and PP's large financial gains from abortion, but not everyone is bad overall. I feel like this paragraph is "another post for another day."

I don't know if this will make sense when I reread in the morning, but I refuse to pass by another person on the streets without giving love. Mother Teresa said: "Peace begins with a smile" and sometimes, as a "broke college student" a smile is all I can afford, but maybe sometimes it could be all that a person needs.