today while i was trying to track down an old grad school classmate of mine, i noticed a photo of said grad school classmate and one of my classmates from undergrad. i couldn't help but freeze. i stared at the photo, bewildered.
how do these two people know each other?
one is from the northeast and went to college in west virginia, the other is from north carolina where our grad school is as well. i was so confused... has that ever happened to you? when you realize that two people you know for two completely different reasons happen to know each other?
it just goes to prove that as vast as this world seems at times, it really is quite small.
it made me think about tragedies like 9/11, hurricane katrina, the earthquake in japan or the tornadoes in joplin. it's kind of sick, but we always want to have a personal connection to the tragedy. like, even though i've never been to japan, there is an international student at pfeiffer (whom i've only spoken to twice) who is from japan and his family is fine because they didn't live where the earthquake hit but he knew some people who knew some people who did live there. because i know him, i have a connection to the earthquake.
i remember similar scenarios on 9/11. i remember sitting in my residence hall room hearing girls on the hall talking about relatives who worked for businesses that had offices in the world trade center buildings (even though the branches they worked for were in completely different states) and girls crying inconsolably about friends who had enlisted in the military after high school (although when asked about their 'friends' we found out that they didn't even know the last names of these classmates because they'd actually never talked to them in their lifetime).
and what about the people who claim that they were a little league baseball coach to the latest american idol or the 3rd grade teacher of an olympic swimmer. why do we care what these people have to say? (unless, of course, the star names that coach or teacher as a true inspiration for their aspirations in life.)
we want some semblance of fame. we want to be able to personally identify with these situations, whether stardom or tragedy. we want to be included in the news coverage. we want to be news-worthy.
so why is it when we see funding for public education cut to pieces we remain silent? why is it that we forget about the hungry and homeless in our own communities until we see a commercial on tv (but even then too often we shed one silent tear and then go on with our lives as if we never heard the news)? why is it that we assume that someone else will fix the problem, that someone else will give, someone else will care?
we have got to start caring for our neighbors - around the world, throughout our nation, and within our communities. we have a responsibility to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, the give shelter to the homeless, to love the forgotten....because people, it is a small world after all.
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