By Dave Andrusko
It was late in the afternoon the Saturday after Thanksgiving. My wife, Lisa, and I had established a temporary safe haven in our kitchen free from the usual chaos that comes with the presence of four joyfully rambunctious children. We’d somehow managed to wrest free a few minutes just to read the paper, enjoy a cup of coffee together, and chat. It was nice!
For reasons I did not fully understand at the time, when I read in our local paper that the Salvation Army was experiencing a dramatic shortage in volunteer bell ringers to man its familiar red kettles, I was so shocked I jumped up from the table and searched out the local number.
The gentle lady who answered mistakenly thought I was someone inquiring about a paid position. When I assured her otherwise, she was so pathetically grateful for my willingness to help them help the poor that a wave of shame washed over me.
How many times, I thought guiltily, had I brushed past these magnanimous folks, who patiently waited for some sign my heart was a few degrees warmer than the temperature outside? How many times had I been so self-absorbed that these devoted volunteers simply blended into the brick facades behind them?
I was mortified when I recall that even though I had occasionally given money, never once had I emerged from my self-absorption long enough to actually “see” them, let alone grasp what their silent vigil stood for. Because I had always looked through them, they never really existed for me. I hastily volunteered for several assignments. (In what was surely a feeble attempt at expiation, I made sure that one of them was on my birthday.)
The moral of this story needn’t be belabored to tenderhearted pro-lifers. When our culture “looks” at the vulnerable, all too often there is a failure to recognize and therefore an inability to reach out in love and compassion. This is never more true than in our treatment of the littlest Americans, the unborn child.
Story continues:http://www.lifenews.com/2015/12/24/
