Where you live

The bridge collapse in Minnesota struck close to home because Minnesota is next to Wisconsin, but more importantly, I know people who live in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Helen, Jay and Tom and Helen's foster son John and his family all live there.

The trial of Eric Hainstock held more interest than many others because the trial took place across the street from where I work and I know people who know people involved.

Flooding or drought in Texas concerns me because most of my family lives there.

When the steam pipe in New York explodes, I have family there.

When Katrina hit, lots of Carmelites -- including my dear friend Anthony Morello -- were affected by it.

Every time I read about another bomb in Baghdad, I think of Jean Sleiman and wonder if he's okay. I know a number of families here who have members fighting in Iraq.

A recent report about the murder of an American priest in Kenya makes me wonder about the safety of Steve Payne and Gene Wehner and Chuck Gamen and Dennis Geng, all people I have lived with in monasteries in America.

I am amazed at all the places that I have friends because of where I have had the opportunity to live. All the places where the news is more than news.

I have lived in Georgia, Texas, Michigan, Arkansas, Mexico, Washington, DC, Boston, Rhode Island, Maryland, St. Louis, Wisconsin, Illinois. I have friends in Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Iraq, Italy, Ghana, Ethiopia, Ireland, Tanzania, South Africa, Vietnam, Canada, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, Croatia ... Not to mention Iowa, Nebraska, New Mexico, California, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Florida, Arizona, Oklahoma, Kansas, Ohio ...

The news means more when it touches people we know.

Here is an old story:

Once upon a time the heathens wanted to make fun of the Torah, and of the rabbis. They asked one another:

"Are all rabbis as kind as, Hillel? Are all Jewish teachers as good as Hillel? Are all rabbis as patient as Hillel?"

So one of them said:

"I shall go and find out." He came to Shammai, also a famous rabbi, and cried:

"Your Torah, your wonderful Torah--I can learn it while I stand on one foot. Rabbi Shammai, you teach it to me while I stand on one foot." You see, he was just making fun of the Torah.

Now what do you suppose Shammai did? Do you think he had patience with a man who was making fun of the Torah? Who ever heard of learning the whole Torah while standing on one foot? The rabbis had spent all their lives in studying the Torah and even then they were not sure that they knew all of it.

Rabbi Shammai took a stick and shouted angrily:

"Get out of here, you scoffer! Do you think I have time to waste on people who mock our holy Torah?" The heathen ran away. He thought he would go to Hillel and see what Hillel would do.

All out of breath, he came to Hillel's home. Hillel thought the man had come for something very important. So Hillel said:

"What is the matter, my good man?" And the heathen answered:

"Teach me the Torah while I stand on one foot."

Of course Hillel, too, saw that the heathen was scoffing, but calmly and patiently he said:

"You want to learn a great deal quickly, don't you? Very well, I shall teach you the Torah while you stand on one foot. This is our Holy Torah: 'What is hateful to you, do not do unto others.'"

The heathen forgot that he had come only to jeer.

"Does it mean that the heathens and the Jews and all of us are brothers? Does it mean that we must be kind to one another like brothers?" asked the heathen, wonderingly.

"That's it, my son. That's the meaning of the whole Torah. All the rest is only an explanation of that. Go, go, my son. Go and study it," said Hillel kindly.

"When may I come for another lesson?" asked the heathen humbly.

I once said that if someone asked me to teach them the Good News while they stood on one foot, I would say, "God loves us. And there's only us. No them."

Knowing some of them in all these places helps me realize there is no "them" -- only us.