Walk the talk

1991, south Georgia: A 13-year-old white boy goes to a Black girl about his age crying in the grocery store. They talk for a few minutes. Her crying ends. They talk a bit more. He rejoins his family. Her head high, no tears, she leaves.

1964, Oslo, Norway: A Black American speaks to the gathered crowd. He tells people, “All life is interrelated, and all men are interdependent.” And he adds, “We are inevitably our brothers’ keeper.”

Circa 1940, India: An Indian lawyer notes the “best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

Circa 1840, Concord, Massachusetts: An American writer says, “If an injustice requires you to be an agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.”

Circa A.D. 32: A carpenter in Nazareth relates many parables, including one about loving our neighbor, in which we are required to act for the good of others, even if we have to sacrifice to do so.

All these share one idea: no one is to be treated as invisible or as not equal. No one.

All are God’s children. Even Paul tells us in Galatians that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

If the United States is the Christian nation it professes to be, then no one would go hungry, or suffer from lack of healthcare, or need shelter, clothes, or even safety. To do for the least of these is to act according to our “faith working through love,” as Paul reminds us.

On Jan. 17, walk the talk of your faith this day and every day thereafter.

Duane Pitts

Moses Lake