Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose

I started this post over a month ago. I am sad to say it is still just as relevant today as it was then. Have y'all ever seen Friday Night Lights?  The TV series, not the movie.  I stumbled on it on Netflix a year or so ago and binge watched my way through it.  And then I found the movie and watched it. I loved them both. One of the things that has stuck with me ever since I watched the first episode of the show was "Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose".  It became a mantra that the Dillon Panthers shouted before they headed out onto the football field to play.

Victoria Macey - Dribbble

It also became a mantra I started applying to my life. I'm a firm believer that change comes from within. If I want the world to be a better place, then I need to start with me. Start by cleaning out my baggage, my preconceptions, my biases. View every person I meet knowing that they have their own struggles, their own beliefs, but they were fearfully and wonderfully made.

Fill my heart so full of love that when terrible things happen in the world, I act, and not just speak.  I fully believe in the power of prayer. But words without actions serves me, not others. It can be something as simple as a friend with a sick child, or as terrible as an attack.  Prayer can be my first step, but it should not be my last. Can I take the mother of the sick child a meal? Offer to babysit her other children so that she can get her child to the doctor? How can I help her? Can I give blood to help out when a tragedy happens? Donate supplies to the blood banks to help out the donors when they are far away?  How can I actively show love?

During the movie, Billy Bob Thornton, who plays Coach Gaines, gives a speech. In it he says: 

Can you live in that moment, as best you can, with clear eyes and love in your heart? With joy in your heart? If you can do that, gentlemen, then you're perfect

If we can live in this moment with clear eyes and love in our hearts, we're perfect.  Clear eyes, to see that our world view isn't the only one. To see that just because we haven't experienced something, doesn't mean it hasn't happened. It just means it hasn't happened to us.  Hearts so full of love for mankind that we would listen with open ears to others concerns and make them ours. That we would begin to try and find a way to heal our country together.