By BRADLEY ROBERTSON

I have always been a feeler, a deep and wrestling feeler. And not just for myself, but for others as well. I’m beginning to think this is one reason why I write and tell stories, to share what the human heart often forgets to feel, for we are good at bypassing anything of the sort.

I remember the pit in my stomach the moment I left my grandmother at around 12 years old, knowing she would soon pass from this Earth and I would never see her again.

I remember one of my high school friends not making the cheer team and I was torn for her, so I took her some random flowers and a hug, I was 15 or 16 years old.

I remember a Christmas morning when my father’s mother passed away. I remember hugging him in his bed and not wanting to leave his side.

I remember when Braxton and Sissy were babies and my dear sister lived so very far away in Colorado. She was in a touchy spot of life which left me itching to reach out and touch her, to hold her, but there was no way when great distance was between us.

Of course, amongst all these feelings were the multitudes of joy, happiness, passion and love, all the things we openly express and share with others.

Today though, I have noticed that as clearly as I see smiles, I see anger, disappointment, unsatisfaction, intolerance and judgement. It’s like watching a race, and they are all neck and neck. One gets ahead and then the other catches up, an on-going parallel of who will win. This has left me sincerely questioning hope in our world.

For where on Earth is compassion?

Is it even there anymore?

Have we separated ourselves so well from others that we cannot even begin to feel of the human heart?

“You never really understand a person,” said Atticus Finch, “until you consider things from his point of  view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it…”

Are we, as a people, climbing into another’s skin for just a moment to consider their life?

Oh God, I hope we are, I hope we can.

Surely we can stop long enough to feel of another human before we brush their soul away.

And if we are losing the sensitivity and value of each human life, will we do something about it?

I think we must, by learning to feel all over again, and not just the joy of life, but to sit in our own weak spaces, the hard and the lost spaces. When we feel for ourselves, we can feel for another. If we lose all compassion, then we are at the same time losing our own humanity.

I want to leave you here dear readers, to question yourselves. Are you in a place of compassion or does your heart need a little restoration?

I pray I think of you today, and tomorrow and the next day. I will keep writing for you too, in prayer that my own heart repairs bless the people of this community.

This will be a series of stories, meant to question and inspire the human heart to think beyond ourselves and into the heart of others.