When You Know Someone
Never, ever, ever did I think I’d like the TV series “The Walking Dead." During my recent vacation in Minnesota, I became hooked on the show. Crazy! I just wanted to see one episode to see what everyone was talking about. How could anyone enjoy watching zombies? What’s all this zombie craze?
To me the show is not about the zombies. I was drawn into the lives of the survivors. Their lives unfolded and developed and each episode ended in that cliff-hanger style that left me on the edge of my seat. In a couple days I watched season two, then parts of season three and just completed season one back at home. During the zombie scenes I have to look away or close my eyes so I don’t see everything.
Of all those scenes I watched, only one episode really struck me with such an important message. It was in season two possibly episode seven. There were zombies in the barn on the farm. They were the wife and family members of the farmer. The farmer couldn’t bear to do what needed to be done - kill the zombies before they killed him. He kept them locked up in the barn.
The new people on the farm found out about the inhabitants of the barn and were determined to destroy them before they got loose and killed them. Taking matters into their own hands, they released the zombies from the barn and started killing them. The farmer cried out in anguish as he watched his zombie wife and others destroyed. Then all of a sudden the shooting stopped. A little girl came out of the barn - a zombie herself. She was dearly loved by the new people on the farm, and they had been looking for her for days. They could not shoot her even though they knew they had to for their own safety. They couldn’t shoot her, because they knew her even though she was a danger to them.
So it is in life. We are often afraid of others that we do not know. Those we have never shook hands with. Those we have never listened to. Those we consider a "danger”, because they are not like us either in looks or speech or culture.
That is why it is so important to get to know people live-and-in-person, face-to-face, hand-to-hand. That’s why it is so important to hear people’s stories. That’s why it is so important to step out of our comfort zone and into theirs.
Christ talked with, touched and grew close to the ones others were afraid of. What a great example. When we do this it enriches our lives. May we all get to know someone society tells us to be afraid of so that we no longer are.
