| Excerpts from CHAPTER 5 - Caring Enough To Work | ||
One of the most eloquent descriptions of the power of
caring comes from the story of a Swedish diplomat, Raoul Wallenburg, who
during World War II saved almost 100,000 Hungarian Jews from the Nazis.
His method was to show up at deportation centers speaking commanding German
and waving official-looking passes, both of which he knew intimidated the
Nazi officers. These passes made any Jew holding one into a Swedish citizen
under the protection of neutrality. A survivor comments on Wallenburg showing
up at a train station: |
||
...he gave us hope. He gave us back our dignity, our humanity. Can you fathom the impact of what his being there meant to us? Someone cared, someone who thought we were human beings worth saving. Someone who had no obligation to us fought for us! He saved our lives just by caring for us. We began to care for ourselves. |
||
...how do you get someone to begin to care? Remarkably, on a spiritual gifts inventory, all of our staff scored high on the gifts of faith and mercy. Faith enables us to envision and care much about who a young man will become, while mercy allows us to overlook and care little about what he has done. Cared-for children learn to care for themselves. If the significant people in his life treat him as worthwhile, he will see himself as a person of worth. We aim to be those significant adults for each gang youth. When a boy sees himself as a person of worth, he will treat himself and his property with care. Garbage belongs in a landfill; no one puts diamonds there. Trash is found in the streets; diamonds are kept in nice homes with nice people. But a diamond that thinks he's trash will end up in the streets... |
||