All day, I knew that I would have to write something today. I did not know what I would write. I did not know what form it would take. When the World Trade Centre was attacked, I wrote poetry. I may yet follow that path later, but I could not form the semblance of anything like poetry today.
It was not until a friend lamented the plight of the human race that the idea of what I needed to write came to me. It did not leap at me as some thoughts have done. If crept slowly upon me, like a rising tide, until I could not help but be swept up in the notion.
That glimmer, that ray of hope in midst of almost overpowering darkness, was a small story that made me smile. It made me smile so much my heart ached with the beauty of it. My heart ached so much I cried at the simplicity of it.
Image from http://brazil-football.com
Prior to the recent Football World Cup held in Brazil, German midfielder Mesut Özi sponsored 11 surgeries for children suffering in the underfunded Brazilian health care system. That, in itself, is an amazing act of charity. From someone not even out of their 20s it is an awesome and worthwhile contribution he has made to the lives of those children and their families. Özi wasn't done, though. At the conclusion of the tournament, following his teams victory, he went on to donate a significant portion of his personal winnings to sponsor surgeries for 12 more children.
If you hadn't heard this story before now, don't feel bad. I hadn't either until I went searching for a feel good story and had to wade through page and pages and pages of depressing, gut wrenching, soul destroying news. The fact that this story wasn't headline news is sad, and doesn't surprise me, but maybe we can change how we experience the news that is delivered to us. You're reading this via perhaps the most powerful information dissemination resource known to mankind.
People aren't, on the whole, bad. They are born as a blank slate and their experience of the world shapes them into the adult they become. The fact that TV networks, newspapers, radio stations and the internet persist in filling every waking minute with stories of devastation and violence says just as much about us as it does about the news outlets.
We have the capacity for so much compassion and generosity, not just financial but of spirit, that those feel good stories should be the majority of the news, not a column filler or that last piece after the weather report. If we considered the human race to be a race for each other instead of against each other, the world would be a much safer, happy and fulfilled place to not only exist but to thrive.
