Taking advantage of a very nice Texas spring day, I am out on the BMW riding back roads. Lots of other bikers out today as well. Riding season, which is pretty much year round here anyhow, is really beginning to ramp up.

I herded a calf off the road with the bike on one two lane blacktop. Stopped at the closest house to check with them and let them know. Good deed done I rode on.

I sit now in What-A-Burger having lunch after riding much of the morning. It is a guilty pleasure of burger and onion rings that I should not be having on my low carb diet. But one must enjoy from time to time.

I am reading Kathleen Norris’ “The Cloister Walk”. She is a wonderful writer and the look into the monastic world she provides is quite humbling. Its view into the world is from a completely different vantage point. One that we all could use more of. One based upon community and acceptance.

I am in small town Texas and the people here are representative. All very simple folk; a rancher and his wife, bubba from down the street, three older guys in overalls and the standard fair of young towns people trying to make a buck behind the counter.

A girl who is not behind the counter strikes me. She works here and is cleaning tables. She strikes me because she is larger and plain. Homely, although we don’t use this term much any more, some would say.

Now, please don’t judge me. I do not make this statement with any judgement or negativity of my own. It is only an observation and one that breaks my heart. I do not mean to be harsh, but the difficulty of her life is written on her face and very clear to read.

I am sure she is a sweet person. But this world will not be kind to her.

I mention this also as it relates to what I am reading.

I have long considered becoming a Benedictine Oblate. Which is to say, follow the Benedictine Rule and a form of monastic life outside of a monastery.

What I love about the living more of a monastic lifestyle is the idea of community. In such a community, someone like this girl would be looked upon differently. She would be valued as one of God’s creations and not judged by a worldly standard that seeks to look down upon the homely, simple or weak.

I grew up with a father who looked upon those less fortunate than us with compassion. Who stood up for the little guy and who taught me to value everyone.

The world frustrates me. I come in contact with so many that the world would look down upon. The forgotten, the disenfranchised, the devalued, the discarded. We put a value upon humans based upon looks, or station or standing. Forgetting that God looks at what is within and values the person.

It makes me think about a quote from Dickens “A Christmas Carol” – “Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be that in the sight of Heaven you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child. O God! to hear the insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!” Scrooge”

I love the way this line is delivered in the movie version, with disgust and venom.

I think that, some, of the beautiful, the wealth, the well off in this world could do with a bit of that disgust and venom. Things that I suspect they never hear in their picturesque lives from so many who idolize what they have or who they are not realizing that they too deserve our pity.

In fact I dare say more so than this poor girl. Their lives, while lived in the public scene seem picturesque, what I have learned over the years is that this is rarely the case. Most harbor far more demons far more skeletons that the devalued of us tend.They often live lives of quiet desperation far more interested in the outward appearance of perfection than the truth of the decay within.

The world, in its state, you may say cannot be changed. I feel that way far too often myself. But as my good friend has said so many times, “Just be nice.” Simple acts of kindness and compassion go a tremendously long way.

As I spoke to the girl, shy and hesitant at first, unaccustomed to people seeing her much less interacting, I could see the beauty within. We only spoke for a moment, but as I had expected she was sweet and kind. Probably has a heart the size of Texas. She just needs to feel valued to be noticed for something beyond her appearance.

We all just want to feel valued.