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Now THAT's Air Conditioning!
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Barbara (my wife) and I drive busses for our
school system. She two years longer (I think) then myself. This past year our
local school board approved using ESPLOST (education, special, purpose, local
option sales tax (the key word TAX)) dollars to add air conditioning to the
regular route busses in the county. Special education busses have been air
conditioned for some time but not so with the regular education busses. The
cost to refit a bus (I am told) is between $8,000 and $8,500 per bus. The bus
costs $82,000plus. The system will do
this to 58 busses and 52 will NOT receive AC. The decision process includes
such factors as age of the bus (value) and most importantly length of time
students are on the bus. The longer riding students have a higher priority than
students on the bus say 15 minutes (yes some routes are that short). The
remaining busses will be air conditioned as they are replaced in the next 6
years. Two days ago Barbara got an air conditioned bus. I did not.
I know what you are thinking. But
I’m good with that. I have never driven an air conditioned bus before. I am
glad she got one as it seems the heat is harder on her (so she says). Thursday
morning as she was leaving I said goodbye and with a smirk, “don’t get too
hot.” I expected a short comeback but instead she seemed embarrassed that she
had air and I did not. I did not expect that. She felt sorry for me.
Our perspective changes when we
know someone “less fortunate” than us. When those suffering have a name and a
face and a relationship to us no matter how skimpy the relationship we “sit up
and take notice.” When a young expectant mother “sees” her unborn fetus for the
first time through ultra sound it becomes a baby, her baby. Families in
California who have suffered years of wildfires. Burned businesses, charred
belongings of what once was a home all in the wake of a fire become real when
we know them. Those families suffering through flooding in Louisiana are just
on the news to us until we know a family or a community or a business. Then we
have empathy for them and their plight. Why is that? Why must another child of
God become human (in our eyes) before we notice and/or care? Have we become so
accustomed to suffering that we ignore it or is it we just can’t see it?
When Jesus told us to love our
neighbors as ourselves some wanted to qualify the “neighbors.” In their mind he
could not mean everybody? A lawyer asked the question and we hear of the Good
Samaritan. All are neighbors because all are made in the image of God. Some
more recognizable than others but all the image of God. That alone connects us
by blood to them and their plight. That being the case, how we see those in
need, those hurting, those lost, those incarcerated, those in pain, immigrants
changes. They are no longer them but us! To see them in that light is to see
them as Jesus saw us from the cross!
Jesus saw us as Lost NOT Losers
with Compassion NOT Contempt and with Love and NOT Loathing. He knew and knows
the resources of heaven are not taxed or stretched thin and neither are ours.
Why Not? Christ is IN Us! The mystery revealed in God incarnate, a man moved
into our neighborhood and now our very lives. You see everything changes when
we know HIM!
In
HIS service and yours,
Amen!!!!
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