Today President Bush visited the site of the bridge collapse and said, "We have an amazing country where people's first instinct is to save lives.”
When we hear of the heroic specifics in any tragedy, we gasp at the bravery and then an often subconscious element seeps deep inside, “Would I have done the same thing? Or would I have run to safety?”
Recently, I shared the story of a Marine to a colleague of mine. The Marine had risked his life and suffered considerable injuries to save the man next to him. That story had a specific name, it had pictures, it is, and always will be, a dramatic story of someone showing “the first instinct to save lives,” and an incredibly resilient spirit.
After I shared the details, the pictures and the inspiring outcome, my colleague had a serious look on his face, a troubled look. He was quiet as he looked at the picture of the wounded Marine. Then he said to me, “I hear about something like that and I wonder, what would I have done? I don’t know if I would have.”
The cynics of life get going on their rants about how people act bad and always will and they blog all over the place – invading the internet space with their self-indulged verbal bashing fits spotted with foul mouthed, crude, sophomoric cynicism and self-deluded sense of “activism”.
Contrary to that cesspool, that Marine whose story I shared and many thousands of other Marines, as well as the truck driver in Minneapolis who helped those children, the folks nearly passing under the bridge when it collapsed who ran forward to help, the people who dashed out of their apartment to help someone to safety, and we recall the many heroes of 9/11 – their stories go deep into our conscience, our heart, so when something like that happens again, we become someone with “the first instinct to save lives.”
President Bush also said, "In times of tragedy, our hearts ache for those who suffer, yet our hearts are also lifted by acts of courage and compassion."
Our country depends on those who instantly become powerful leaders by showing courage and compassion. Their example will always lead the rest of us, so on the chance that we end up in a similar circumstance, we know what to do. In the meantime, we leave behind the snide cynics and let their words get whisked away by the more constructive currents of those with far deeper courage, compassion and hopefulness.
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