Have you met Courtney Weir? Make a point of it. If I listed the folks I most admire, her name would be there. I have my reasons. This young actress is beautiful, big-hearted, intelligent, funny and extraordinarily talented. Thats just getting started. She inspires me. For some time now, she has made me laugh with her FB tales of her adventures in retail. One day, she announced she was going back to college. Never mind that this was a financial challenge. She wanted more from life, and she was willing to sacrifice. Now, she entertains me with tales of academia and its inhabitants. But college is changing Courtney. Lately, she has been posting FB essays whose maturity is both provocative and provoking. A recent one in particular had me reading with astonishment at its perceptiveness. She spoke of how quickly we label belief systems based on the actions of extremists who shelter beneath that belief. Westboro Baptist members are not representative of the Christian faith, she argued, any more than Islamic extremists are representative of the Muslim faith. By letting the actions of a few color the attitudes of the many, she wondered if we were destroying belief in any system. Courtney is young enough to be my granddaughter. To watch her confront the faults of the world with wisdom and concern is ... well, its humbling to me. I, too, attach labels. One is that the young are always immature. Another is that wisdom comes only with age. Courtney cheerfully tosses those into the trash, and rightfully so. Serves me right to find myself sitting at the feet of a young person. I dont want her to do as I suggest, I want to live up to HER expectations. Thanks to this young woman, I will think twice the next time I am tempted to jump to conclusions. I am an imperfect creation, but, by some miracle, I possess the ability to think logically. If labels must be applied, let them be based on specifics. A man who beheads another is evil but that does not mean every person who shares his faith or his ethnicity is so. Negativity is washing over our world with the power and regularity of the tides. We are sinking beneath a flood of ugliness. Are we better for it? Courtney doesnt think so. Neither do I. Join us in saying enough is enough!
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 21:57:30 +0000
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