WAKE UP AMERICA - WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER

What a world we are living in! Our country is struggling greatly on so many fronts. In my lifetime I don’t remember a time when there was more civil unrest, division, anger, and flat out hate in American society. It feels like a civil war is going on.

The lack of civility and love for one’s fellowman is sad. It’s even scary! The world just seems to be so angry and spinning out of control.

Several years ago, I read a cute little fictitious story that might help all of us to see the need and importance to love one another more, be kinder and more understanding of one another, really listen to voices that are not your own with a desire to understand as much as being understood and help to create needed change.

The little story I want to share with you creatively illustrates the ideas that I would like to promote. I hope you enjoy the story.

THERE’S A MOUSETRAP IN THE HOUSE

A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package. “What food might this contain,” the mouse wondered. The mouse was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap. Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning. There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!”

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised its head, and said, “Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is of grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.”

The mouse turned to the pig and told him, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!” The pig sympathized, but said, “I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers.”

The mouse turned to the cow and said, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!” The cow said, “Wow, Mr. Mouse. I’m sorry for you, but it’s no skin off my nose.”

So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s mousetrap alone. That very night a sound was heard throughout the house – like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey. The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught.

The snake bit the farmer’s wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital, and she returned home with a fever. Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup’s main ingredient.

However, his wife’s sickness worsened, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig. The farmer’s wife did not get well, and she died.

So many people showed up for her funeral and then came to his house that the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all his guests. The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.

The moral of the story is that the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn’t concern you, remember that when one of us is threatened or is hurting, we are all at risk. We need to stop demonizing one another and do everything in love, especially when we disagree with one another.

We are all involved in this journey called life together, and as long as we all look out for one another and treat one another like Jesus said we should in the Bible then we might just change the world.

Let's learn to listen more, love one another deeper, and take care of one another so we can turn this old world into something better than what it has become at the present time. “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15).

United we stand. Divided we fall. Don’t look for change. Be the change. –Steve