compassion

Be The One

Last week in church, we finished our final section of our study called “For The One.” This is a rebranding for our church, as before our slogan was “For the Basin” referencing the Permian Basin, for those readers that aren’t familiar with west Texas. This study had five areas we want to exemplify as Christians:

  • Follow the One
  • Reach the One
  • Serve the One
  • Gather as One
  • Be the One

Each week we studied one of these areas and learned the importance of each of these areas and how they are fundamental to not only the church, but to our individual walks with God. Sundays final lesson, “Be the One” focused on spiritual maturity and how we obtain spiritual maturity. Our pastor, Jeremiah, spoke about what spiritual maturity is and what it is not. It’s not really like Jeremiah to call anyone out, but he was a bit more fiery than usual.

He told us spiritual maturity isn’t about how long you’ve been a Christian, how much Bible knowledge you have, how elevated your morality is, or how deeply spiritual you are. This touched on so many issues we have in the church today. Things that deter new Christians from finding their sense of belonging within the church. Statements like “well I’ve been here for X amount of years so I know what’s best” or “I go to church so I’m clearly a better person than they are.” “I raise my hands and worship more openly so I clearly have a better connection with God” or “WELL ACTUALLY the Bible says blah blah blah.” I’m sure all of us at some point have heard something along these lines. We’ve all heard something that has made us feel inferior in our faith walk.

I think in today’s society we’ve become stuck in what’s called the bystander effect. This term was coined when a Kitty Genovese was being attacked and sexually assaulted outside her apartment complex. After her murder, police found that 38 people witnessed the violent attack, yet no one called the police or even went to help her. Majority of people said “I thought someone else would call/help her.” The attacker was detoured twice by lights coming on in the building but ultimately returned to Kitty for a third time to stab her to death. This is why during emergency situations, with any sort of training (CPR, EMT, etc) you are trained to point to one person and instruct them to call the police because in theory, most people will assume someone else will do it. If you elect one single person to call it eliminates varying stories about the events as well as the inaction of every person present.

How many times in our lives do we refuse to help someone we see suffering or struggling in life because we assume that someone else is going to do it? We’ve become a world of “not my problem.” I can tell you I’ve lost people in my life because all of us thought “not my problem, someone else will help them.” Even outside the realm of religion and spirituality, being “The One” for someone could save them. Being that one person who takes the time to show love and compassion to someone who is stuck or hurt could result in a single defining moment that changes everything for them. We need to ask ourselves every time we hesitate “If not me, then who?” Most of the time, there is not another “who.”

Our life is made up of small moments. Singular interactions where we only have minutes to change the path someone is going down. So step out of your comfort zone and reach out to someone the next time you feel that inkling that they’re needing someone to be their one.

Mayday! Mayday!

Now that life has somewhat gotten back to normal, I wanted to share my experiences over the last week. Saturday, the 13th, I got married. My dad officiated and it was short and sweet and quite complete. The ceremony was filled with wisdom and a constant reminder that our marriage relies on Gods love and he is truly the third strand in our rope. We had cake and punch and other finger foods. My mother put together a beautiful spread of snacks and that cake was phenomenal. She’s truly a talented party planner and I couldn’t have put that together without her. And the best part, there was a storm so it only lasted an hour and I got to put my jammies on afterward and enjoy time with my husband and my parents.

The next day, the storm started moving in more and my community started moving into emergency preparedness mode. Drip the faucets, turn up the heat, ice the sidewalks, etc. Monday morning, I woke up freezing cold and dead quiet. I came out and of course, my mom is doing her thing. Making coffee on the stove, making biscuits on the stove, all while bundled up. We played some games and ran some errands while we prayed the power would come back on. You couldn’t even get through to the power company to get an estimated time of restored power. By 6pm when it still wasn’t on, we made the decision to take the guest apartment at my work. Meanwhile, my GM who lives a block away from me, is trying to figure out where to go so she can plug her oxygen in.

I honestly wish that was the end of story. At 7am Tuesday morning, my bus driver calls me from down stairs, telling me a pipe has busted and the dining room is flooded. I ran downstairs in my pjs, no shoes, and my glasses. The pipe that burst had been in the ceiling of an apartment (vacant one thank god) and had caused the ceiling to fall. Me being a resourceful person, got the water off as my executive chef called in a plumber. We spent the next hour shop vacuuming the dining room while the plumbers did their thing. A huge shoutout to my staff, especially Robbie, Rosa, and Zuly. Without hesitation they went to work cleaning up and making sure our residents were safe and knew the water was off.

As fate would have it, when it rains it pours. Not even an hour later, we lost power. Now a lot of people asked why a place that houses seniors doesn’t have a emergency power back up? Well we do, but it’s for emergency lights and in their newer buildings, emergency plugs in every room and hallway. With us being an older building, we only had emergency lighting. Technically we’re independent which means most of these people are in good health and not have extreme medical needs, but I have multiple people on oxygen. Thankfully I was able to find one working outlet, but we had one extension cord. So who gets it? Who gets to have their oxygen machine running?

So as we’re standing there, praying we find a way to get oxygen machines plugged in, the power comes back on. But now we have to get into preparedness mode because we wouldn’t know if it was gonna be a rolling black out. Thankfully, family members came and brought extension cords and for the sake of safety we ran extension cords to the emergency plug for oxygen machines. Now because we didn’t have a kitchen during this, my executive chef made an emergency trip to the grocery store. As you can imagine, they were barren. He went to the deli and asked for the entire turkey to be sliced up. When he said that, the kid asked to clarify if he wanted the whole thing. He said it was for 88 elderly people so ya the whole thing. The manager was behind him and asked what else he needed. The manager said they just had a truck come in and hadn’t had a chance to restock so he went in the back and got him bread and chips to go with the deli meat. Shoutout to HEB for taking care of our people. You really saved us.

I don’t think I slept much that night, waiting for the power to go out. Waiting to make a run downstairs in my pjs to make sure everyone was okay. I thought we made it out of the woods by the next morning but sure enough I woke up and at 7:30 the lights went out again. Thankfully, it was for two hours this time. We made it through Wednesday and by Thursday the ship had straightened out. I finally was able to go home and sleep in peace.

I saw a lot of posts talking shit about how Texas doesn’t know how to handle a little snow. Let me tell you, I may not be a Texas native, but in the four years I lived here, it’s snowed three times, and only one of those times was it enough snow to close things down. But not once have I experienced something like this. I’ve experienced snow storms, I’ve lived in a house with no heat in the winter, but having an entire town, almost an entire state, without power and water for Multiple days. TeXaS ShOuLd HaVe BeEn PrEpArED. Y’all are dumb. We don’t even own winter clothing out here in west Texas because it’s cold maybe one month out of the year. Last year we got an “Arctic chill” when it dropped to 31 degrees. Homes are built for the heat we get not the cold. People literally died because of this storm and the negligence of the Texas power companies. There were no supplies left to buy. They literally had warming stations set up so people could just come for a little bit to warm up. Furniture stores were opening up and letting people come in to sleep. But everyone wants to say Texas should’ve been prepared. How do you prepare for entire power grids to go down?

Thank you for listening to me vent and hopefully everyone comes out of this a little stronger and more compassionate. I’m ready for that warm west Texas sunshine.