One week. Seven days. Boy oh boy. A lot can happen in seven days.
In less than one week there have been two mass shootings. Yesterday a 21-year-old man killed 10 people in Boulder, Colorado, at a supermarket. Five days earlier, a 21-year-old man in Atlanta killed 8 people, 6 of whom were Asian women.
Seven days.
Modern times have gotten so frightening that I’m afraid to read the news. What horrors am I going to read about seven days from now?
Sometimes I worry about this world. I worry about where it’s going. I worry it’s falling apart because that’s what everyone keeps saying. They all say the universe is coming apart. Mankind is turning inward on himself. It’s enough to make you break out into shingles.
Which is why I am writing this to you. Because although this planet sometimes seems screwed up, I want you to know about a few other things that happened within the last seven days.
Take Mike. Mike is a 63-year-old man who grew up
working various labor jobs. He has always been a blue-collar man with dirt under his fingernails.
His life reads like a tragedy in some places. Although, had his story ever been made into a literal book, Mike wouldn’t have been able to read it. Because Mike couldn’t read.
When Mike was around age 10, his father died. Mike quit school to work in his uncle’s restaurant. He had never been a strong reader to begin with. Eventually he forgot grammar-school stuff altogether.
The technological world advanced without him. In his 63 years, Mike had never owned a computer, never owned a smartphone, never sent an email, never penned a letter, never read his own junk mail. Reading-wise, Mike could do little more than sign his name and read everyday words.
But last year, Mike began taking reading lessons with a private tutor. And last Monday (less than seven…