This is the Blessing Tree. Holy Cross Hospital in Mission Hills, California, where my dad stayed for around two weeks, has four of them on the path that leads from the hospital to the parking lot.

The message on the bottom says “place your sticker badge here to send your loved ones a blessing.”

My sticker is 2340. That was the room where my dad was staying at the time.

I appreciated the Blessing Tree. It kept me mindful of several things

1. The Power of Prayer: Everyone here had someone thinking of them.
2. The Value of Ritual: Sometimes we feel powerless to help. I can’t change your situation. I can, however, send you a blessing.
3. The Multitude of Stories: Every sticker represents a life, a family, a history, a hope. A million details exist.
4. The Moments That Connect Us: We often don’t take the time to be human till we realize we are in the same boat. New Yorkers, whether natives, or immigrants like myself, are often mischaracterized as rude. I think we’re just busy. And we all wear armor. And when moments snap us out of our tunnel vision, and shake us free of our armor, we are often determined to help.
5. The Cares That Disconnect Us: How many times am I oblivious to suffering because I just can’t be bothered? How often is an entire life, that is entirely intertwined with mine, a few feet away from me, and I don’t know, because I’m just focused on me?

The modern moment often focuses on the inhumanity of our neighbor. It brims with the craving to exempt them from the list of people we need to care about.

We rationalize incivility and inhumanity.

We justify disregard and disrespect.

When faced with a need, or the evidence of pain, too many of us offer carefully curated reasons why we shouldn’t have to care. I think you’re lazy. I think you’re ignorant. I think your race, or class, or sexuality, or gender identity exempts you from my concern. I think your poverty, or wealth, is a sign of your character flaws, and a reason I can righteously despise you. I am exempt from caring about you because there are other people I should care about more.

I gotta say, I never want to get there.

I have my own convictions. I value fairness. I believe in right and wrong. I have things that upset me.

I never, however, want to get to the point where I root on someone’s misfortune.

I never want to reach the point where I can conclude someone deserves cancer.

I never want to reach the point where a CEO is murdered, and my first response is a joke, even if that person specialized in actions that did great harm.

I don’t feel joy at the consequences that befall the cruel.

To do so, for me, is to allow someone else’s inhumanity to diminish mine. I’m not accountable to them; I’m accountable to God

I’m not even comfortable with the social media ritual of flexing disregard by reporting a death, and following up with “so what are we having for dinner?”

I never want to reach a place where I celebrate someone’s demise. Even with people who do evil things, I can’t get past the fact that they were someone’s baby boy or girl.

I can’t get past the fact that someone, somewhere, had high hopes for them, or worse, didn’t and should have.

I personally think, as a person whose life daily expresses amazing grace, the undeserved favor of God, that I do not have the moral standing to advocate it be withheld from anyone else.

And don’t get me wrong. I do not reach the place of saying it’s all good, no harm no foul.

Nor do I think that “judge not lest ye be judged” is an invitation to declare no act right or wrong. That’s a misreading that just lets me off the hook. That scripture is a reminder not to put myself in the position of a judge, who can pass sentence and exact penalties on others. It’s a reminder not to place myself behind a bench, on a higher plane, with my own actions immune from review., while yours are on trial.

Plenty of things anger me. I think that our disregard for hurting people grieves the heart of God. I think we rush to throw away people who can be redeemed. I think we revel in cruelty and resist accountability.

I think it is unacceptable in the least of us. And when people with power do this, it is all the more pernicious.

That said, I do think the understanding that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory tells me I don’t have a Heaven or a Hell to put anyone in.

God’s decisions are above my pay grade.

For reasons I don’t understand, he shows some people mercy.

In ways I will never see, he is blessing and using people whose lives seem unfairly hard to me.

Mercy is not mine to withhold.

And death sentences are not mine to give.

All I can do, is love God, love people, try to live it out daily, and repent where I fall short. So that is what I will do.

I pray, today, that you know that you are loved.

I pray that you neither condemn yourself for your faults, nor content yourself not to work to fix them.

I pray that you grow in grace for yourself and for others.

And I pray that peace and favor rest on you today.

If no-one else puts you on their blessing tree, know that you are on mine.

Traveling mercies.

I’ve got a branch with your number on it.

(Photo Credit: Mischa Field)