Photo: Picjumbo
19 Engulfed in beauty
Pediatric medicine
regularly involves decorating the child’s room. Children
are responsive to cheerful environment; it promotes
healing. Admitted or ignored, the same applies to
adults. Dr. King brought us hope by teaching us to see the
beauty of the promised land around us.
Did Dr. King dispense
decorations? Problems worsen if they are decorated
over. No, he was not a soothsayer promising panacea.
His hope-filled message was dynamic and arduous. To see the
promised land around us, we had to create it within
ourselves. We were able to do it.
Recall the story of the
teacher who offered students roses. When the students noted
flaws (dirt, dead leaves, thorns), the teacher took off the
offending parts and gave them to the students. They
deserved and received what they chose to perceive. Some
people watch the news and learn how many people were killed in
Chicago recently. Others spend time searching the internet
for service opportunities. Which one lives in a more
beautiful world?
Official police
departments need to study murder statistics. I do not; that
does not impinge on my life. Because I am aware that
some of my friends have special needs, helping the disadvantaged
does impinge on my life. Sensational calamity is not
my lifeline of hope; neighborhood kindness is. Citing
morbid statistics does not encourage; it is not beauty.
Accomplishing improvements within my power does
encourage. It takes my attention away from a negative
condition and directs it to beauty. Echoing previous
blogposts, this makes me feel needed.
I call on all my readers
to turn off the negative signals—to block out empty
complaints—and instead pursue the promised land. If we are
looking at the good we are about to do, we are surrounded by
beauty.
You
make the world beautiful.
Being For Others Blog copyright © 2020 Kent Busse
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