The Help; and Other Good Intentions

Note: I wrote this as an opinion piece for our local  newspaper but think it has applicability to the blog as well. So here it is. [www.villagechronicles.net]

In our last issue of Village Chronicles (Warrenville, IL) (12/30/11) we completed our thanks to the volunteers who make the newspaper possible. We also closed out the year with a review of the issues we have been following for more than two years – issues of importance to the community.

This week’s issue is about the future. The community’s future. The people who live full lives, who share their blessings with others. Who make Warrenville strong. Sometimes the stories are final ones, obituaries; or memories shared of persons important to us, now gone but still powerfully in us. Other stories are about yearnings of families in trouble and reaching out for help. Still other stories speak of organizations and churches that labor on doing the work we know is important but cannot do by ourselves.

We cover government programs, meetings, and their issues as they evolve. We strive to help the reader understand the issues – large and small – so they can follow the choices in front of the community before they are made. We also cover those stories so citizens can make good choices with their votes, time and effort in supporting the needs and solutions best fit for the community. That’s not always clear. But we try to make it easier to understand, more clear.

The New Year is a time for resolutions – statements we each make voluntarily that we hope will guide our actions for the coming year. These are good intentions that often fall flat after a few months or weeks. Other times we surprise ourselves; the good intentions lead us somewhere; we use that achievement to fuel the next hope or dream; and suddenly we are in the process of constructing a larger resolution. Maybe something we can achieve?

I just finished reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett. It’s a current best seller and made into a film that is getting good reviews. The story takes place in the early 1960’s in Jackson, Mississippi. It is about the daily struggle of civil rights among the domestic help working in white homes. The treatment black maids received from their women bosses were incredibly hurtful; sometimes well meaning; but based on separate and unequal standards. It is an old refrain most of us over the age of 50 are familiar with. The era examined was a painful one to experience, but it evolved our national character to a higher plane for having lived through it. Reading the book stirred up the emotions of that time. I was touched again and again by remembering and reliving those painful days.

We have such painful days with us now. We think down on immigrants; almost as though all immigrants are illegal; we look askance at people who attend different churches than ours; or Lordy (!) no church at all; we worry about the tattooed or be-spangled youth and wonder why they permanently disfigure their bodies; we witness countless TV ads that belittle male role models; we are pummeled with political messages pressing various points of view without much basis in fact. And the list goes on. Unequal, unfair, misrepresented statements and viewpoints that go unchallenged and taken for fact.

Shame on all of us for meekly allowing the status quo be left to ride.

The future belongs to each of us who care to think about it, imagine it, and work for it day after day with purposeful actions. That begins with resolve: resolution to do something different or better than we attempted in the past.

If not now in a new year, when? When will we decide to be more of the good that is in each of us? And share it with others? And make a difference. Already many do that without thinking about it. But more is needed by the rest of us.

Shall we each do this sincerely in 2012?

Check back with you same time next year to see if that happened! Meanwhile, Happy New Year! May your resolutions have both meaning and impact.

January 2, 2012