by Charles H. Crawford
The other day, at the intersection at the corner where we catch our bus ride home, we met up with a neighbor and talked about his kids. We all listened and laughed about their antics because all our kids seemed to have taken lessons from the same book. Then at a Maryland Area Guide Dog Users group meeting I heard folks sharing stories about their dogs and even some mention of the hush-hush subject of cats! Later, we spent some time talking with the waiter who was serving our table at the restaurant where some of us gathered after that meeting. He was probably one of the nicest people I have met in a while.
Sunday came and our priest opened up the service with a very human, and equally spiritual, plea for peace. Her voice practically trembled with conviction and compassion for all in the church. As I listened to her, I could feel her words and love take flight to places as deep as our hearts and as far as peoples I have never known.
Now as I try to focus on things that matter to blind people and ACB, I can’t help but think of all the people I have had the pleasure of talking with in just this one week. How about that guy in the Senate who is a big cheese in a key senator’s office? And then there were the people in the elevator on the way to the ground floor who could have been anyone in the Senate. What about the guy who polishes the brass inside our office building, the bus driver who gets us home at night, the woman from U.S. News and World Report whom I met on the subway, and how many more? Was our priest talking to them? Are their kids like mine? Do each of them know that they are an important piece of this puzzle that fits together into what we call humanity?
How very fortunate we are to have had the pleasure of talking and sharing in our lives. No, in many ways our conversations haven’t seemed like the substance of what will change the world, but yet the more we talk with each other and share our lives, don’t we accomplish more than all that government money aimed at integration?
Indeed, there are things we can believe without seeing. Those things are each of us in our own lives taking the time to appreciate one another and to know that in many ways it is our way of being, individually and within ACB, that allows us to be open to one another without judgments and allows us to approach one another with open minds and hearts.
I wish you peace, great chapter meetings, good affiliate activities, and thank each of you for being members of ACB, the best darned organization of the blind this country has ever known.