A dear friend is deciding tonight whether to remove the life support that is keeping her mother alive. A neighbor is praying that the platelet transfusion her daughter receives from her son will sustain her daughter long enough to have surgery and hopefully survive. Gadhafi is dead. There are millions of Americans unemployed, losing their homes. The population on our planet has hit 7 billion, and the temperature is rising. We are in a terrible drought, crops and cattle dying, the foundations of buildings moving, cities rationing water. The wife of one of our coaches gave birth to a healthy baby girl.
And a group of parents and grandparents storm the Board meeting mad that we do not have enough volleyball coaches and the girls do not play enough games.
We have free public schools! We educate all kids, including the poor, including girls -- neither of which is universally true on this planet. We even have volleyball! (And football, and basketball, and softball, and baseball, and tennis, and golf, and track, and cross country.) More than that, we have a fleet of dedicated teachers who struggle mightily to engage students in the content and create an environment for learning the stuff that will benefit them for a season that is longer than this fall. It will help them the rest of their lives.
Help me keep first things first.
...and the important things in life are brought to our attention at the expense of another's loss or heartbreak. Thank-you for your thoughts.
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