The Beauty Of Perspective

Back in the days of the Vietnam War, two American comrades were imprisoned in one of the enemy’s hellish POW camps. Although they did their best to keep a low profile, eventually each one was charged with some infraction of the rules and sentenced to be punished.

As the first man’s infraction was lighter than that of the second, he was sentenced to spend three days immersed up to his chin in the camp’s cesspool, a rather odious punishment to say the least. The second man, whose infraction was a bit more serious, took his place in a second cesspool immediately adjacent to the one his friend occupied. The difference in the measure of punishment was that the second man was immersed in this awful collection of sewage…up to and just below his nose.

Able to turn his head somewhat easily to one side, the first man contemplated the second man’s predicament, paused, and thought to himself, “You know, things don’t look and smell that bad from over here!”

In life, and especially during these rather difficult times when a microscopic speck of genetic material has brought the world to its knees, sometimes the only choice we have as conscious beings is to understand that there are blessings inherent in even the most disturbing situations. Let us each take an opportunity to count as many ways we are privileged to have food, clothing, shelter, friends and awareness. Doing so will go a long way toward making this endurance test more palatable.

Shalom!