Yesterday, driving back from Chicago, I was listening to NPR most of the whole way back. It starts repeating about every 4 hours, so I move around to the BBC. Anyway, I heard a segment about a bunch of Libyans that are in a Boston hospital getting some help after getting injured pretty bad in Libya during the uprising over there.

Anyway, this is the line that struck me – “In our culture we say one thing about the American nation: ‘You live your heaven on Earth in the States,” he says through the translator. And this guy is hanging out in a hospital in Boston. (You can listen or read the segment here.)

The Libyan guy had a mixed up perspective on the United States mostly, but that was because he was so new to our country. But he did know that the US was a much, much better place than where he came from.

I was thinking about it the whole way home. I was thinking how nice it was that I didn’t have to stop at any check points and show identification. I didn’t have to worry about getting blown up or shot or robbed while driving back from Christmas. We take these things for granted, but it isn’t the norm for much of the rest of the world.

The holidays are a pretty good time to reflect on our lives. Maybe we should all remember that we won the lottery when we were born here. We did. And that there are lots of other people on this planet that would gladly die to give their children a chance to be in our places. That is how many of the rest of the people on this planet think. There are lots of things wrong with this country, but I think we all take a lot of what we don’t have to worry about for granted. It’s not available to most of the world. It couldn’t hurt if we could try to be a little more humble and not arrogant with our power and flaunt our wealth. After all, that’s probably not how people from heaven would act.