Start With Me...

Forgive and forget. Two borders she could not cross. The memory haunted her even now. If she could stay busy it seemed to stay quiet, but she could not always stay busy. The remembrance was both sight and sound, always the same. A sky so black it threatened to swallow you. The only lights were the crazed eyes of a woman, her mother, old beyond her years, slowly tearing pages from the Bible, eating them, repeating 'taste and see...the Lord is good...taste and see.'


So begins the book project I was privileged to write with Mike Seaton, founder of the Start> Project - www.juststart.org. Our hope was to show a weekend in the lives of ordinary people, men and women like you and me, and what it might look like if folks like us took seriously the response-ability of being a good samaritan. And in that hope, we tried to show how vital small kindnesses are to this thing we call life. There is much ado about a global awareness of needs and meeting those needs, as we believe there should be. But if you're building orphanages overseas while neglecting your neighbor back home, well, something's foul; its not one or the other, its both. Hopefully this story, which you can probably read in one sitting, brings a little perspective back to ourselves and the precious people around us and the spots of time we can seize to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God.

For those interested, there is a DVD series, curriculum, etc., all available on the Start> website. The book - Start With Me: A Modern Parable is a complement to those products. You can order the book from Amazon, Borders, and Barnes & Noble.

Thanks,
John