Don't Kill Jesus

I can't help it.  I'm going to start with this in spite of how I tried to argue myself out of it on the way to Starbucks tonight.  I saw a dog crossing the other side of the busy street I was on, and someone hit him.  Hit him and continued driving on.  The poor dog.  I had already slowed before it got hit in case it made its way to my side of the street, but after seeing it lying in the road, I had to slow even more, make a U-turn and stop with a couple of other cars who had stopped when they saw what happened.  I wasn't much help.  Two other cars had stopped and three women were stopping traffic and trying to carefully put the dog in the car to take it to the animal hospital.  It was awful.

And then I made it to Starbucks and sat down, ready to work.  I connected to wi-fi and saw a link to "The Economist" and an article discussing Syria.  Because I have become a rebel to local news stations and rarely see the national news, I am very out of the loop when it comes to world events, so I decided I should probably read a little to inform myself because it sounds like more military action.  You know what got me in the article?  It wasn't the political debate, the should we or shouldn't we.  It was the fact that anyone would use chemical weapons - no, not even that.  I was just overcome as I have been in the past with why people have to inflict pain and harm on others?  I had to keep myself from crying.  I don't understand it.

I talked about this before in my post "Latchkey At Last", about being devastated to learn about slavery, and how I would cry every time I watched or listened to Jesus Christ Superstar.  I guess I'm just sensitive at the core, in spite of how hard I try to present myself.  I've been told by some peers at work that I am too personal or share too much with some of the people I supervise; that as a boss, I should maintain a certain distance.  I have learned the hard way that this is sometimes true, but I wouldn't be me if I couldn't be someone they could talk to, if I couldn't allow my empathy to enter into my professional life (and Empathy is one of my strengths, according the Strengthsfinders).  I put on a good front, the persona of someone who has it all together, but we all know that's not the real me.  I've been through a lot, and I've made it through.  I learned to survive it, that's all, but I'm not unscathed.

I did something nice this morning for someone who needed something nice to be done for her.  Later, she told me that my small act of kindness somehow snowballed several other acts of kindness toward her.  I was glad, happy that I'd done something good, but as I told her, she makes it easy to be nice to her.  That's what I tell Deril whenever he says I am being nice to him.  It's easy to be nice to him.  It's easy to love him.  Some people are just like that.

So do an act of kindness today, or tomorrow, or the next day.  Stop if you see a dog lying in the road, hurt, even if you have somewhere to be.  Don't harm people with chemical weapons.  Don't perform dehumanizing acts on other people because they are different from you.  And don't kill Jesus; that is, don't persecute someone out of fear and for political gain.  You get the idea.

I'm going home now.  It's time to spend some Q. T. with Deril and Maisy and Maya.