Look beyond your front door and see the other America

With all the heaviness, the struggles, and the endless political battles that seemingly engulf all corners of the world, I’m always amazed at how we continue to get up and get going each day.

From viruses to violence, stock market dips, gas price ups, school sessions out, and high-paying jobs hard to find, we manage to get up and get going each day.

What a wonderful statement on the resilience of regular people who find something in themselves to continue on no matter what comes at them. I hear often how hard life was during the depression and other darker periods of history. Come to think of it, life seems pretty good today, at least from where I’m sitting.

Sometimes, I look beyond my front porch and I see people really suffering. Neighbors, nearby, just south of our border, and neighbors far, far away. It’s something that we don’t do much of, think of people, regular people like you and me, living a life of extreme struggle.

We don’t think of it because we don’t have to think of it. Instead, we focus on our struggles, like not being able to go on vacation or not having the luxury of buying a new T.V. this year. A friend complained to me recently that he was going to have to work overtime for a while so that he could afford to fly to Hawaii this year, and I thought to myself, life can be so tough.

We all have real struggles in each of our own lives. They can be big and overwhelming. The difference is that we have the privilege of having access to a society that helps us overcome those struggles — communities of people that care, education, advanced medicine, government assistance. We are blessed.

Others not so much. When I think of my hermanos and hermanas who are trying to make it to our wonderful country, crossing rivers of danger, suffering hunger and thirst, taking risks of life and death, I think of how I have everything I need in life, even if it’s not everything I want.

We do live in a place that the good Lord has blessed. A place where there is still a dream that we can achieve, almost anyone can achieve with a little elbow grease and a whole lot of grit. A…