118 - Caring about people, about a person, is a big deal.

and a note about something I working on.

Welcome back! (Or welcome!)

I’m working on a piece about grief memoirs. I’m writing about what they are, how they help, what to look for and watch for. I think it’s going to be helpful. But it takes time to write and I’m tired.

I’ll have it for you in a couple weeks, I hope.

It may start this way:

“The death of a loved one is the first sentence of a memoir. It may get written. It may get told. But that memoir will be lived.”

For today, I’ll share something I wrote for the readers at 300wordsaday.com this week.

On caring about someone

Some friends of mine were caring for another friend who died on Monday. (People care for other people all the time.)

When I was talking with one of those friends, I said, "You all cared about him, not just cared for him."

It was one of those times that I made a note of what I said. I wanted to remember it.

You can care for people you don't care about. It happens all the time. And I've done it. You and I are not being mean, we're being professional, we're appropriately doing our work.

Sometimes, though, that caring for is rooted in caring about. The reasons may be biological (parent and child) or relational (spouse or friend). Sometimes, though, the reason is because of a conscious decision to value a person as a person.

In this case, my friends overlooked what our friend could or could not do, and they cared about him.

On Sunday in chapel, we were talking about a sentence in Galatians. Paul writes that "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

As I was writing about it, I realized that those are three of the many pairs of labels that are regularly used to divide "us" from "them", to disparage, and demean, and devalue, and dehumanize.

But Jesus. Knowing that each pair of labels includes everyone, Jesus cares about everyone.

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Rich's Ride exists because of caring about.

Rich and Becky Dixon are long-time friends. They live in Colorado and ride a bike and a handcycle, and, over the past 13 years have raised $850,000 to support a home for kids who have been rescued from human trafficking. Their goal each year is to cover 100% of the expenses of one of these homes in South Asia.

The heart of fundraising is a set of bicycle rides in the Front Range in Colorado. Except this year, the rides were disrupted by some changes in Rich and Becky’s community. (Rich wrote about it in “Internal Conflict” at 300wordsaday.)

I mentioned the challenges a couple weeks back over at 300wordsaday. I said,

“This year, the contributions are down. Because we’re confused and distracted and worked up. We’re worked up because of disruptions in what it means to care for people. And particularly people outside this country.

But our uncertainties don’t change something that is true. At this moment, there’s a house where kids live. And Rich’s Ride has supported it. Covering the expenses for this house for a year.

So far this year, it seems like support will fall short.”

After I wrote that, nearly $4,000 was given by people who get that newsletter. But the need still exists.

I decided to let you know about the need, too. I’d love to have you DONATE to join Rich and Becky and Nancy and me in caring about and caring for these kids. (Rich and Becky visited our house a few years back.)

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I’ll go back to writing about memoir. I may not be here for the next week or two. But, in the meantime, I’m grateful for the ways you are working to care for and care about people in hard times.

Jon