Mindy never had a chance to see the cute, little red scooter I bought for her to use as her primary mode of transportation. A few nights before Mindy was to come back from Minnesota the little red scooter was stolen from next to the front steps of our new home.
I should have expected something like this would happen, mainly because for the last three years now my main mode of transportation was passed on unwillingly to someone else (my bike the last two years, Mindy’s scooter last week) sometime in the fall. I did not expect it to happen simply because the area that we live in happens to be a more low-income neighborhood.

I can easily see how having something stolen so quickly after having moved into a new neighborhood could strike some hestitation or discouragement in a new resident. It was fairly discouraging for me that this gift for Mindy was never going to be given, and discouraging because we need to reconsider how Mindy is going to get to school. Having something stolen is never a comfortable thing, it feels like a violation of ones personal space, it is often an inconvenience, and it further exhausts ones resources

But I think the over all feeling I get from the stolen scooter is best summed up in the lines of a famous song you might all know from a magical boat ride:

It’s a world of laughter
A world of tears
It’s a world of hopes
And a world of fears
There’s so much that we share
That it’s time we’re aware
It’s a small world after all

This might need some explanation. I think the problem often with our choice of location, is that we consistently choose to isolate ourselves from anything and anyone we might consider dangerous. We, regardless of our religious affiliation, choose the safest and most life prolonging routes. If it’s a small world, I’m sure is heck going to do my best to keep myself in the safest part of it. It’s a small world, but in looking out for number one I’m gonna maximize the hopes and laughter, and leave the tears and fears to somebody else. Stolen scooters break that way of thinking.

I can’t help but thinking that I had a part in shaping the life of that person that came by in the middle of the night to take that scooter. I’m convicted with the reality that I have some responsibility in the stealing of that scooter. I know that sounds weird and backwards and wrong, but there is some truth to it I think.

When students in my city aren’t receiving a quality education I have some responsiblity in that. We tend to worry only about our own children and their well being, but as Dr. King once said, “injustice anywhere, is a threat to justice everywhere.”
A scooter was stolen the other night, someone is being abused, children aren’t receiving a fair education, men are being discriminated against, teens are being hooked on cigarettes, children are working in sweatshops, and the stories continue.

If we, who come from middle and upper class communities, selfishly worry about only the needs and issues that affect us and our surrounding commmunity, we are not doing what we should be doing.