I hope everyone had a great Valentine’s Day. Although Valentine’s Day has special meanings, loving is not a once-a-year activity. Having a caring heart for my neighbors as well as my friends and family is a daily practice I try to follow.
You’re Fired. Recently a former member of the South Alabama golf team called with the news of the birth of their second child. Both mother and baby were healthy — and he was surviving.
Later in the conversation, I asked him how his work was going. Their projects and finances were in sound condition. The he paused and said, “but we had to let someone go.” He let me know it was the right decision but firing someone was not enjoyable to him. He knew the man had a family and now entered a tough job market.
He is a very sensitive young man. I could understand how he could feel dimissal was the right decision but had no glee in firing someone. That thoughtfulness comes from a caring heart.
I am not against SOME of the changes being performed by President Trump and Elon Musk. For example – if I have a complaint about a banking practice, federal (FDIC, Federal Reserve, the Comptroller of Currency) as well as state agencies have ways I could register a complaint. Thus, the complaint process for banking in the Consumer Protection Agency is probably government duplication. To me it appears to be the right decision to eliminate that portion of the agency. I have not considered elimination beyond that segment of the agency.
Thus, my big issue is not the rightness or wrongness of a decision to eliminate a part of government, but rather how it is carried out. Whether you have a caring heart or take glee in saying “you’re fired” is important to me. I prefer and my faith walk demands a caring heart.
Beth Thames. I read the computer version of our statewide paper every morning. One of the frequent commentators is Beth Thames. She is not a political commentator. Her columns are human interest stories. I do not always read her column, but a recent one caught my eye and in the spirit of a caring heart, I think it is worth sharing.
From AL.com —
“Apologies to my Spanish professors, Mr. Perez and Mr. Hinken. Even after two years in high school and two semesters in college, my language skills are pretty weak. And when I visited Central America one summer and tried to speak the native tongue, people answered my questions in English, saving all of us a lot of time.
Apologies too, to all the Hispanic workers who are being stereotyped as criminals and illegals based on the way they look and the way they speak. Many of them have families, dreams and goals, and yes, even papers—work permits or Green Cards.
So, when a team of workers, all Spanish speaking, came to build a new deck on my house after the tornado last May, I didn’t think of them as criminals, but rather skilled workers who would put in the time to rebuild my deck.
I found the one who was heading up the team, tried a few questions in my halting Spanglish, and he put his phone up to my mouth. If I spoke into the phone, its translation mechanism would turn my sentences from English into Spanish, and we could understand each other and go about our business. Our business was to figure out the best way to repair the wooden slats that used to form a wall at the end of our second story deck.
The wall now hung off the house like a broken arm, waving in the slight breeze that didn’t cool anything off now that it was July. It had taken a long time for our contractor to get his workers to our house. There was so much damage everywhere—home owners had to get in line.
The deck railing was also jutting out over our yard. The twenty-foot drop made me nervous, but the workers were used to that kind of thing. A few of them dismantled it and others pulled up damaged deck flooring. It was early in the morning, but it was already beastly hot.
One of the workers—the only woman—nodded hello and got right to work. She had a hood pulled up over her head, and wore a black sweatshirt. I wondered if she had other clothes that might be cooler in that summer heat. I didn’t know the protocol. Should I offer her a tee shirt that would be cooler to work in? Would I offend her if I did this? Instead, I offered a hat—a big sun hat. “Sombrero” was a word everybody knows. She took it and said, “Gracias,” another word everyone knows. She and the others worked most of the day, asking to fill their water bottles when they needed to, and taking short breaks to eat the lunches they brought.
It took five days to repair the damage and rebuild and stain the deck. Each day, the workers came early and stayed late. One day an older woman came in a truck I hadn’t seen before. She pulled into the drive, waved and nodded to me, and passed out boxed lunches she’d prepared for the workers. They ate in the shade and went back to work.
On the last day, one of the men showed me phone pictures of his three children—two boys and a girl. One had on a soccer uniform. The oldest stood behind him. The youngest — a pony-tailed girl — sat in soccer boy’s lap. The father proudly told me their names and ages.
Then the workers cleaned up and said goodbye. “Adios!”
I don’t live in a border state. I’m not a politician. I don’t know much about immigration law. But I know we need to find ways to stop stereotyping people and solve the problems we have without snatching people away from their children-little boys in soccer uniforms and little girls in ponytails.
The young woman knocked on my door seconds later. She’d forgotten to return my sun hat. I told her to keep it. I had others. She thanked me and left with the men in one of the trucks. She wore the hat that was now her own. She was no thief.”
This and That
Immigration. From the early days when the Dutch East India company established a colony around Cape Town, South Africa, the Dutch, German and British Colonialists took land, enslaved blacks and ruled under Apartheid. Now the rulers of South Africa want a portion of the confiscated land returned to the native people. President Trump and Elon Musk have decried the action as prejudice. They offered immigration status to white South Africans. Everyone should reflect about this action as it relates to current US immigration policy. Interestingly, the South Africans said no.
The Climate. We had snow at the beach but the temperature world – wide was the warmest January on record. There is a Southern Hemisphere!
Good News
First Responders with Caring Hearts
Denver Firefighters Deliver Warmth And Smiles With 1,000 Winter Coats For Kids
Heartwarming
Man Learns To Read At 58 And Finally Reads The Magazine He Treasured For 40 Years
He Took Her To Girl Scouts, She Learned CPR. Days Later, She Used It To Save His Life
Peace (and love)
Jerry
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