Getting Close

In Bryan Stevenson’s book, Just Mercy, he speaks of his grandmother who used to squeeze him so hard he could hardly breathe. She would tell him while he was in full embrace, “You can’t understand most of the important things from a distance, Bryan. You have to get close.”

The moment I read this I was struck with its wisdom. Throughout my political career I would always think and say that it is local politics that is most important. It is then that you can have a real and immediate impact on people’s lives. The same is true in most of my experiences. Until I got close and spent time understanding the real effect of what I was doing, I was merely trying to catch the wind in my hands. Unless you get close in whatever you do whether it be raising a family, your work, of your charitable activities, you have to get close, and we must teach others to do the same.

The same is true with our relationship with God. In AA they talk about a conscious contact with God through prayer and meditation. The most important thing we can do every day is to get close to God. To allow ourselves to be squeezed with his embrace.