When Paige and I were in seminary at Emory University, we had a friend, John a second career student, who kept us all in stitches with his unique comments. One of our favorites from John was, “People are funnier than anybody!” It was appropriate in legions of situations. In current vernacular it sounds creepy , but my mother used to say, while waiting, “I just enjoy watching people!”
The song People, written by the Jule Styne and Bob Merrill team, and made famous by Barbra Streisand, echoes the heart of God—at least as James Weldon describes it in “The Creation.” God created the world and all that’s in it…
“And God said: I’m lonely still.
Then God sat down–
On the side of a hill where he could think;
By a deep, wide river he sat down;
With his head in his hands,
God thought and thought,
Till he thought: I’ll make me a man!”
He knew the man would be lonely still; so God also created woman; the two were commissioned to be fruitful and multiply. Thus like it or not, we all are in this together. It does not take Ancestry-dot-whatever to reveal that we all are kin to each other. The song, “People” echoes this reality;
“People who need people,
Are the luckiest people in the world
We’re children, needing other children
And yet letting a grown-up pride
Hide all the need inside (Emphasis added)
Acting more like children than children”
Sitting in an arena, or a stadium, it is not so creepy to watch people from such a distanced vantage point; you get to watch the antics of, well, people. As Yogi Berra said, “You can observe a lot by just watching.” As I think about it, there is a science devoted to this topic; Sociology. And then, there’s the unblinking eye of our ubiquitous cameras. As is true of almost anything, these “people watchers” are both bane and blessing. But I digress.
I see a consensus among these; The Bible, Yogi Berra, James Weldon Johnson, and the Styne-Merrill team—let me paraphrase a line in their song; “The luckiest People in the world, are the people who recognize that we need each other.” If nothing else, COVID-19 taught us the ravages of isolation from—people. Especially people who matter to us. Amanda Mull wrote, in the current issue of The Atlantic: “For the luckiest Americans, the past year has been marked by soul-deadening tedium and loneliness.” (Emphasis added). A cheerless, but real reminder that we need each other.
It is pretty clear that we needed and still need each other. There are untold outpourings of stories how this neighbor, or that community, or another business/organization helped. Many discovered that reaching out to others is a multiplier.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s messages lately, show that as the USA begins significantly to level the curve, hope begins to brighten—joy and smiles begin to bubble up. There is light in the eyes of people greeting each other—-even for those who still, out of an abundance of caution, wear masks.
As Jesus was teaching about the only important commandment, a lawyer asked “Who is my neighbor?” The story Jesus told about an unlikely act of kindness; that story reverberates down through the centuries. So significant is the Good Samaritan story that every state has some form of The Good Samaritan Law.
Yes. As John amused us by saying “People are funnier than anybody,” it is true, we need each other and to laugh with each other and at ourselves. “People who need people,—(really) are the luckiest people in the world!!