Yesterday in the news it was a roller coaster of emotions. Generally due my schedule and the fact I have a 2 year old, generally I am watching Dora The Explorer not the nightly news. I try throughout my day to read varies news sites to garner what is going on in the world.

Yesterday a couple of friends on Facebook and Twitter (which sometimes is a good place for up to the minute news) posted an article about from the site Buzzfeed entitled “21 Pictures That Will Restore Your Faith In Humanity.” These pictures ranged from a Subway that gives free sandwiches to those who are homeless, a dry cleaner who will clean clothes for those who are unemployed to Christians holding up signs of apology at a gay pride parade. All 21 pictures showed the power of humanity at its best. Take a look here.

Smile.

Later on in the day I saw a video that was quite disturbing and to be honest I didnt even finish it; my heart broke about 45 seconds into it. It is posted below and give the nature of the internet it was spread rather quickly. If you havent seen the video, you can watch if you want…again is hard to watch and there is some language involved.

In a nutshell a grossly underpaid bus monitor was verbally abused by a bunch of Middle Schoolers. The insults ranged from calling her fat, to wishing she was dead to claiming that her family wanted to kill themselves not to be around her.

Hateful… hateful… hateful speech. No human being should EVER be subjected to kind of abuse that she was put through.

I’m not sure (as of this writing) what the school will do if anything to the children that were involved. If I ran the show (and if my opinion mattered) I would expel the children from the district for abuse and assault of a school employee, give the bus monitor the entire summer off with pay and reassign her for the upcoming year. Maybe that punishment is too harsh and maybe I am allow my emotions get in the way, but I believe I am not alone in this. The Greece New York School District has posted a statement regarding the video, stating that they are looking into the situation. (Read it here)

You can blame the system, their parents, violet video games or language in PG-13 films; whomever you blame this is a problem of humanity in general. How can in one day we see the goodness and beauty of humanity and then be punched in the gut with the realization that we are flawed at our core?

Is there still hope for humanity?

Harnessing the same internet that brought this painful event to light, people from across the country and maybe the world, has poured out their thoughts and feelings as well as their pocket books all to send the bus monitor on a vacation of a life time.

At the publishing of this post, over 14000 people had contributed money to the total of $300,000 with 29 days left to go in the campaign; that is an average of $21 per person. At this rate, it will be well over a million dollars sometime next week. (You can track and contribute to the cause by clicking here.)

Smile again.

Once again, humanity triumphed over hatred. Maybe we have learned from our previous mistakes and try to instill them into the next generation as best as we can.

For me as a follower of Christ, I am overwhelmed by the number of times that Jesus called for love of the neighbor and love of the other. A friend of mine is working to start a new church plant and his new church’s vision statement is one that I believe has the possibility to change the world and even the Church as we know it.

Dare the world to radical selflessness

Imagine a world of selfless people, imagine a church with selfless people (I’m not saying that they are not there but we could use a few more). The possibilities of what could be done for the Kingdom of God are endless.

How many of these children on the bus claimed to be follower of Christ yet participated in this grave act? I’m not saying you have to be perfect to be a Christian but Christ calls us to a higher and better standard.

The world will always have selfish people in it. It is how we as followers of Christ are able to show that the world needs less selfish and more selfless what the message of Christ can be shared.

The gospel is more than just nice stories of written in a book. It is a testament of how the God of all creation is in the business of restoration and love than hatred and scorn. The gospel thus is only fully actualized when we do as Christ says and “deny ourselves.”

In Christ,

Rev. Ev

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