THEY ARE ALL OUR CHILDREN FOR LIFE

Tea cups and saucers - “A thousand cups of wine do not suffice when true friends meet, but half a sentence is too much when there is no meeting of minds.”

There are few things in this life more difficult to experience than the loss of one's child. Jim Wallis, in *Who Speaks For God?* (Delacorte Press, 1996) tells about a sad and terrifying incident that occurred during the tragic war in Sarajevo a few years ago. A reporter who was covering the violence in the middle of the city saw a little girl fatally shot by a sniper.

The reporter threw down his pad and pencil and rushed to the aid of the man who was now holding the child. He helped them both into his car and sped off to a hospital.

"Hurry, my friend," the man urged, "my child is still alive." A moment or two later he pleaded, "Hurry, my friend, my child is still breathing." In little later he said, "Hurry, my friend, my child is still warm."

When they got to the hospital, the little girl was gone. "This is a terrible task for me," the man said to the reporter. "I must go tell her father that his child is dead. He will be heartbroken."

The reporter was amazed. He looked at the grieving man and said, "I thought she was your child."

The man replied, "No, but aren't they all our children?"

Jim Wallis adds this: "Yes, they are all our children. They are also God's children as well, and he has entrusted us with their care in Sarajevo, in Somalia, in New York City, in Los Angeles, in my hometown of Perry, Georgia, and...in Washington, D.C."

What a fascinating question: Aren't they all our children? Under our roof and across the street? In the next town, the next state, the next country? In Europe and North America? In Africa and Asia? In prosperous nations and developing countries? In the jungles of South America and on sandy island coastlands?

Aren't they all our children? Ours to feed? Ours to clothe? Ours to educate? Ours to keep safe? But mostly, ours to love?

"If we have no peace," said Mother Teresa, "it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other." If we belong to each other, they are indeed our children. Ours to care for.

Is there a greater privilege?

From Lifesupport.

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