Scanning the headlines from the week in review, I find the following actual leaks and laments…
“Game On! 2012 Battle Lines Are Drawn”
“Bloomberg Versus the Big Gulp”
“Wisconsin Race Seen as National Barometer”
“What’s the Matter With Bill Maher?”
“Why Dems Don’t Want to Talk About Economy”
“Walker’s Example: Courage Rewarded”
“Post-Wisconsin Overreaction Commences”
“Presidential Race at a Tipping Point?”
“The Unions’ Biggest Loss Was in California”
“Big Government Has Paralyzed U.S. Economy”
“Dems and GOP Blast White House Over Leaks”
“Obama’s Revealing Press Conference”
Sorry, but when I spend too much time focused on the above, it exhausts me…
Wisconsin, Washington… Washington, Wisconsin. Obama, Romney… Romney, Obama. Rhetoric, rhetoric, and even more rhetoric. Impression management. Egad. It makes me tired just thinking about it. How can we focus on what is good and pure and right, when so much works to distract us?
And then I’m reminded this week of my dear friend, Phillips…
Phillips was leaving an MLB game, when she noticed a man frantically running nearby… running toward her actually. And while in this society, so many fake both need and sincerity, Phillips knew she had to stop. Stop. She had to help him.
Quickly she discerned the man was in dire need.
“Do you have a cell phone?! Can you call 911?” he yelled. “I think my friend’s having a heart attack!”
His friend was slumped over at the wheel.
I can’t imagine what those minutes were like… when life and death hang in the balance… when all other concerns melt in momentousness. And yet here was my friend, calling 911, her fingers holding tightly to the wrist of a fading pulse, her heart grappling with the sobering reality of what was happening: one life. One soul. The moment one good man died.
On the weeks where I struggle watching the headlines — distracted by what is not good, not noble, and not right — my struggle is that so much of this world focuses on the wrong things.
Thank God for people like Phillips… people who know what is good.
And noble. And right.
Thank God.
Respectfully,
AR