The big field trip

If every student on a wintry school field trip brought two coats, and one student had none, surely someone would offer her extra coat to the student in need.

And if all the students brought two lunches, and one student brought nothing, surely that child would not go hungry. Someone would share.

And yet when we zoom out — when we consider our community, our region, and our world — we can forget that we’re all on one big field trip. We live in this world together. And (particularly when we’re not “seated together on the bus”) it’s easy to forget that we have two coats and two lunches, and that some of our classmates are cold and hungry.