Over fall break, I had the chance to walk to the park with my five year old. On the first day, he decided he was going to search for “treasures” on our walk. He found flowers and rocks and leaves and sticks that he thought were “beautiful”. I couldn’t help but notice things I wasn’t noticing but he did. With every stop and examination he made, he did in fact find lots of beautiful things.
On our walk the next day, he decided it was time to pick up the trash. He noticed some along the roadway when he was scouting out his treasures. He then decided we would use the Target bags we carried to collect trash instead of treasures. We filled up all three of the bags we had before we made it to the park.
We couldn’t pick up all the treasures along the way, nor could we pick up all the trash. But we did notice both. We attended to both, sometimes at the same time, realizing what we could relish in as well as what was less than ideal. We could use our awareness of them and our hands to make a small difference.
As we walked back from the park with the trash we had collected in the dumpster and our hands now empty, he grabbed for mine. Our shadows cast out in front of us.
“Look mommy!” he said, “Our hands make a heart.”
Not realizing what he was referring to, I looked at him kind of puzzled.
“Our shadow,” he said, “Look! A heart.”
And he was right. There was a heart.
I’m fortunate to live in a country and raise my children in one where we have the freedom to walk to the park. I know in America we may not all live in an area where we feel safe enough to walk to the park or have one within walking distance, but we all have the freedom to impact these less than ideal circumstances. When we see both trash and treasure along the way, connections and hearts form in the freedom to just be.
It isn’t like that in all countries, and if there’s anything I think is worth fighting for in this one, freedom is it.
If I’m honest, I’ve been disillusioned by all the “trash” out there that seems to revolve around the Presidential and other elections. Maybe you have been too. We all seem to have strong opinions about who should be our next president regardless of which side we lean towards.
Maybe, like me, you’ve thought about simply not voting this year.
But like the walk to the park with my son, we’ve got to take the treasure with the trash. They are both everywhere along the way. Ignoring one really makes you ignore them both.
So on this election day in 2024, I would encourage you to take the trash with the treasure of your freedom to vote and exercise that freedom.
My vote will be focused on the candidate I think will be the most focused on maintaining freedom (and you could spin this statement to either side you want to) so that my husband and I – and everyone else in the land of the free and the home of the brave – can continue to raise up the next generation in a place where they can see both trash and treasures along the way. Where they can use the freedom the generations before them fought for to shine a light through both the trash and the treasures.
