The famous anthropologist Margaret Mead was once asked this question: What was the earliest sign of civilization in any given culture?
The reporter expected the answer to be a clay pot or perhaps a fish hook or a grinding stone.
Her answer was “a healed femur.” The femur, of course, is the leg bone above the knee. Mead explained that no healed femurs are found where the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest, reigns.
A healed femur shows that someone cared. Someone had to do that injured person’s hunting and gathering for them until the leg healed.
I am a living testament to what Margaret Mead has said. I fell and broke my left femur in November 2020 while I was taking a walk. Several strangers stopped, called the paramedics and got me to the hospital. The nurses and the doctors gave me the best of care. While I was in a wheelchair for ten weeks, neighbors shopped and cared for me.
The evidence of compassion, Margaret Mead said, is the first sign of civilization. I would contend that it is also the first sign of the work of Christ in the life of a Christian. If our civilization is to continue as we know it, then you and I need to look for ways to become Good Samaritans to others on a daily basis and stop lashing out at those who do not vote the way we do.
Until you have real compassion…..You cannot recognize love.
When was the last time that someone was a Good Samaritan to YOU? When was the last time that YOU were a Good Samaritan to someone!
GOD GIVES US DIFFICULTIES TO BRING OUT THE BEST IN US!!
