The children are waiting on the hope of America
If you just rolled out of bed and pulled up your jeans, you might have only one thing in mind: how long until the coffee is ready? For many of us, life is as routine as getting up and walking towards the coffee machine like a zombie.
Life can be so dull. Like machines, we operate without thought or emotions. We need alarm clocks because we don’t have the internal desire to get up and get going.
It’s part of the luxury of growing up and living in our beautiful country. People fought for the freedoms that come with the simple moments of life.
How many of you woke up from a comfy bed, took a shower in warm water, and put on that new shirt you purchased on sale last weekend? The scene is a sharp contrast to what most people experience.
America seems like a vast space filled with mostly happy people. Some of us live in rural open areas. We drive slowly and enjoy the pauses that life brings our way. Others of us are in the busy metropolis of urban life. Always in a hurry. Running to make a meeting.
Either way, we are blessed. And yet, most people in the world are living different lives. Hard lives where every day is like the journey of one of those chirping birds you see talking to you from your kitchen window.
Birds don’t plan for tomorrow. They work all day, just to make it through the day. They build nests, find food, feed their offspring, and sleep with one eye open. When the sun rises, they start all over again.
A lot of us could sleep in all day and the world wouldn’t miss a beat. Life is good until you see kids crying on your television screen. It’s that moment when you are reminded that millions of people are trying to live the life you live.
The truth is, life isn’t good for the children of Central and South America who are surviving long journeys in the brutal heat of the desert. Each little one has a price on his head, paid by a parent who is making a heart-wrenching decision to send a child into an unknown future.
Those that survive the modern day trail of tears are being met by a clenched fist and a closed door.
Parents will do anything to give their kids a better life, and as hard as it is to imagine it, they will send them off with a stranger who is trying to make a buck but promises a delivery of hope into a new land.
Why are we closing our eyes to the hurt of the world? We can’t solve problems because we are busy assigning blame. We can’t make progress because we are worried about who gets credit.
We are not thinking big anymore, and we are afraid. What we don’t know scares us, and we don’t know much because we aren’t listening.
And in the middle of all our worries are the children. The crying, innocent children. While we deliberate, they are waiting. While we argue, they are waiting. While we point fingers, they are waiting, and waiting, and waiting.
It is time we wake up and realize that what has made us great for more than 200 years is that we not only listened but also took action.
