Fellow Passengers…

Lets take a moment to talk about people—just plain people- people with problems; people with ambitions, and opportunities; people who sometimes make mistakes, and are sorry for them; people with hopes and sorrows and fears—and faith.

They are all people—just plain people—like all the rest of us. And they are all important. And they are in some ways remarkably alike.

Charles Dickens mentioned the mellowing effect that comes when men look upon other men “as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures, bound on other journeys.”

We are all fellow passengers, no matter what else we are. And the names and statistics that appear in the newspaper are not accounts of another kind of creature, but of people who have all come from the same place, and who hope to reach the same shore.

These names are not merely names, but people with hearts and hopes and fears and feelings—that child in the doctor’s waiting room—that man in the next car—that mother in a far country—isn’t another kind of creature, but quite akin to us, feeling cold and fear and hunger and sorrow and loneliness, and not loving life or loved ones less than we love life and loved ones.

These oft quoted lines of Robert Burns come to mind: “O wad some power the giftie gie us, To see oursels as ithers see us!”—and more than that—not only to see ourselves, but to see others as if we ourselves were in the same circumstances—fro we are fellow passengers, not only to the grave, but into eternity.

And this is simply a plea for understanding people—for more humanity, from man to man—for all have the same relationship to HIM who sent us, ad seeing others as ourselves, and seeing ourselves as we see others, will help to keep us humble, and bring us closer to peace and repentance, as we move on, with our fellow passengers, with all people, in the hope of arriving at the same shore.