compassion

I was walking through the subway station the other day when I saw several people standing in front of a few posters. Curious, I stopped and went to see what they were looking at.

These posters had pictures and brief autobiographical descriptions of the heroes of the Holocaust; the people who secretly took in people who were persecuted, those who smuggled them across the border, those who employed these people in their factories so that they would escape the internment camps, spies who worked on the inside, and people who faked documents and birth certificates to save hundreds and thousands of people. Many of them were tortured and killed, but they continued to do these things until the very moment they were arrested and captured.

Reading about these amazing things made my heart feel lighter. But what made me feel even happier was that the people around me were actually taking a moment from their busy lives and from catching that last bus to stop and read the posters. We were just standing there, silently reading the descriptions, marveling at their deeds, taking the heroes' faces in. I found this to be a beautiful thing. I think at that moment, despite our differences in beliefs, whether religious, political, or personal, we all agreed on something, this shared humanity.

Maybe I've found what I believe in and what I want to continue living for. This universal belief in kindness, compassion, dignity, and freedom.