One package is wrinkled and troubled and old. The second is smooth and beckoning and young. But we don’t know what the packages contain. We don’t know the secret life of the inside.

I believe we need another type of vision. Can we detect the hopes and fears, sorrows and loves, that lie beneath the skin? Can we gaze upon what is truly real?

We need to. And then we need to bring each one of us into the circle of our care.

***

A family went to the restaurant. A little seven-year-old kid and his parents. The waitress goes around the table and takes their orders. She looks at the boy and says “So what is it you’d like to eat?”

“I’d like a hot dog and root beer, please.”

And his mother says “He’ll have meatloaf, mashed potatoes, carrots and a glass of milk.”

The waitress goes around, taking the other orders, and as she’s leaving the table she says “Would you like ketchup or mustard on your hot dog?”

The little boy looks up as she walks away and says “You know … she thinks I’m real.”