Lines

Lines, what if there were no lines, borders, divides?  What if there was no border between countries?  What if we took down the fences between neighbors?  Democrat or Republican, can’t we just be?  For everything there seems to be a divide. If we were to remove those divides, would it create peace or chaos?  Perhaps it is the divide that is our own worst enemy. 

If someone were to ask you, (insert your name here), what are you?  Think for a moment.  How would you answer?  Would you say your last name, your sex, your nationality, your favorite sports team, your ethnicity, your political party?  There are a million things that make us who we are, but what are the few things that define who you are and what is the one thing that first came to your mind.

It is our differences that make this would a beautiful and interesting place, but there are so many qualities that unite us all.  I write this post because so many people have asked me why it is that I am going to Afghanistan, and my answer is simply that, we are all people.  If your brother were there, would you not be on the next flight out?  Once the barriers are removed, you realize that we are all just people, trying to live the best way we know how.  Afghanis, like the rest of us, are people, who have been dealt a much worse hand, trying to deal with it each day.

I am an American, a female, a democrat, a Midwesterner, an activist and so many more things. However, when you see a child who hasn’t eaten in days or a teenage prostitute attempting to “work” for an education or when a baby is left because he is “damned” with HIV, you hold out your hands, do all you can to help and realize that you are a part of the human race, and that rises above all else.

So maybe the solution isn’t to remove the lines between us, but to lower them just enough so we can see each other, enough to know that we are all a part of the same human race.