I recently had an unexpected interaction with an old lady who taught me some important lessons about civic duty, moral responsibility and loving your neighbors. This interaction left me perplexed and I want to share her wisdom with you. 

‍

When I met Miss Lawrence, she was tending to the flowers in the front of her yard. Hands buried in the dirt; she reminded me of when my aunty declared that it was my responsibility to tend to the flowers planted around our house when I was much younger. Wait, before I go any further, please don't tell Miss Lawrence that I called her an old lady, I'm not sure how she will react to that. For some reason she loves calling herself a young lady and found pleasure in calling me an old man… crazy right? But yeah, that's Miss Lawrence, her jokes are top notch. This was a surprise to me; I always thought that because older people have seen and experienced so much, they take life a little more seriously than us young people, but Miss Lawrence proved me wrong. 

‍

What I found incredibly interesting was the richness of the lessons embedded in her words. Our conversations brushed over several topics, but the one that rang the loudest was the one about moral responsibilities.

‍

"What have we become, Elvis? What has society become? Nowadays it seems everybody knows their rights, but no one seems to know their obligations as members of society. And this is not just a national problem, it's more of a global one. People have forgotten to look out for one another… to be their brother’s keepers. And now look, we have climate change; we have flooding in one part of the world and famine in another; we're having extreme heat waves and wildfires like we've never seen before. While all of these appear as natural phenomena, we know they are the end results of our actions. Our lifestyle is harming our host planet and its atmosphere, and most of us are doing nothing about it. How hard is it to plant a tree? We can all plant trees and we all should. We should all have our little gardens… just imagine how sexy and beautiful that will look. It's the little things that matter, Elvis… the little things." Miss Lawrence orated as she chopped dry leaves off the flower she was holding.

"... We should all have our little gardens… just imagine how sexy and beautiful that will look. It's the little things that matter, Elvis… the little things."

Meanwhile, I stood surprised by how she quickly connected civics to climate change… that's not something you hear everyday. But obviously it's not everyday you meet a seventy year old lady that still works a day job. "People get too comfortable doing the wrong things, they forget to do the right things." Miss Lawrence continued. "And we're all people. But that shouldn't be an excuse. We all have a moral responsibility to do good and we should honor that. We should help people; we should point people in the right direction; we should empower people; we should love people. And that is the simple solution to the global problem – we should all love our neighbors as ourselves. And only then will each country love its neighboring countries, and will each continent love its neighboring continents. So tell me Elvis, do you love your neighbors? Please, don't tell me the answer to that question, tell it to yourself."

"People get too comfortable doing the wrong things, they forget to do the right things."

And I was left speechless, but with a question in my mind to ask everyone else. Do you love your neighbors?

‍