Roasted Peanuts & Calloused Coldness

To those hardened

To those who don’t feel

To those whose hearts no longer flutter

To those who insist that they are living although their “lives” have flat lined

I am writing this on a plane destined to New York City, and it was less than 5 minutes from boarding that I became sick. No I am not suffering from motion sickness, nor from flight anxieties. I am sick from what my young eyes have seen. I am sick because I’ve seen the lowest of human society. I am sick because my soul withers in disgust at the stone hearts of those surrounding me that I now get the pleasure of enduring for a 3-hour flight.

I understand human nature, I honestly do, but I was not prepared to experience such callousness as I have just experienced. Perhaps though it would be best to account for what I have seen before pushing forward.

We (myself and my girlfriends family) had just boarded the plane when the flight attendant spoke over the intercom and informed us that this flight was booked solid. Travelling in a pack of 5 we were more than joyous to have secured a whole row and another 2 seats right in front so that we could all sit together as one family. In a matter of minutes, awkward apologies, crab-like scuttles, and the slamming of over packed carry on spaces soon filled the cabin. It wasn’t long before every seat (minus 2-3 randomly spaced ones) was filled and everyone was settling in for the next 180 minutes of his or her life. It was then that my eye glimpsed a small child cradled in the arms of a young mother who was standing at the front.  Once more the attendant’s voice boomed overhead, informing us that there was a women at the front with a young child and a baby who needed a whole row together, and if some people could rearrange their seats she would be eternally grateful.  

You would have thought it was a morgue by how still everyone became, by how deadly quiet the once lively cabin had become, by how heartless all of the passengers seemed to be.

 Not one person twitched a muscle. Not one passenger dared looking that young woman in the eyes. It was as if every warm body had suddenly gone as cold and ethereal as a ghost. The attendant came on again, and you could hear her anger in her voice as she asked once more for people to move… still nothing! Finally a couple of reluctant people slid out of their seats and moved but one seat was still needed to make certain that the mother could be next to her children. My heart was already breaking, but it completely shattered when the flight attendant marched past my row and I could see the petrified face of the young child that clung to her back as she was forced to then be seated over 15 rows behind her mother, all because no one cared enough to move.

If life were like the Discovery Channel, that momma bear would have been tearing right up and down these aisles. Everyone knows that you don’t come between a mother and her child, but apparently in the 21^st century, where suits and java chillers rule, we have forgotten this age old adage… or more frightening, maybe we don’t care.

I could quote numerous Bible verses to support how sad and immoral that is, but I believe that it would be unnecessary.

I don’t care what your religion, or beliefs are, you know deep down what is right and what is wrong. The Nazi’s at Nuremberg were held to this standard and so should we be.

What has gone so wrong that we know longer know what wrong is?

When did we allow ourselves to become so hardened?

When did we forfeit the right to live?

When did we subject ourselves to lives devoid of emotions or feelings?

When did we grow cold?

There is a common misconception with Christianity…

Satan doesn’t win when we sin; there are enough scars to forgive us for that. Satan wins when we have become so calloused that we can no longer feel or care when we do sin.

Merely,

Chris Gerac

“You never come between a mother and her children.” – common sense