Editor’s Note: Rev. Koski gave this speech Monday in Bend at the ceremonial swearing in of new U.S. Rep. Janelle Bynum.

Years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture.

The student expected Mead to talk about fish hooks, clay pots or grinding stones.

Mead said the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur that had been broken and then healed.

Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you broke your leg, you die. You cannot run away from danger. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bones to heal.

A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has protected, cared for and tended the person through recovery. Mead said: “Helping another through difficulty … that’s where civilization starts.”

We are at our very best serving others. In helping others heal, we heal ourselves.

We’re in the midst of a crisis as a nation right now. The root of the word “crisis” means to sift. A crisis shakes things up, removes the excess so all that you’re left holding is what is most important. And what is most important is the love that we can give one another. We are at our best when we are serving others. The truest measure of our compassion is how we treat and care for the most vulnerable among us.

Father Greg Boyle said: “The kind of compassion we seek is a compassion that can stand in awe at the weight some people are carrying in life rather than standing in judgment at how they carry it.”

That is simply called empathy. As a country, we have lost the capacity to ask a fundamental question that is at the heart of empathy, “What is it like to be someone else? What would it be like to live their story?”

Restoration and healing won’t take place in head space arguing about whose opinion is right. Restoration and healing will take place in heart space when we recognize we are all wounded in need of healing and ask, “Where does it hurt?” Empathy, kindness and mercy are not partisan issues. They are the very things that make us human and humane.

We can’t lose hope that love wins! But right now, love is bruised with a black eye and a split lip. Now, more than ever, love needs us to be in her corner. When hate, discrimination and injustice have the megaphone, love can’t afford to be silent.

We live in a world addicted to living with a clenched fist, courage is walking with a brave heart and open hands extending mercy to those who need it. Mercy isn’t soft. It is gritty and fierce.

It is easy to become discouraged and lose sight of our own agency. We cannot be effective if we chase the latest outrage becoming a reflection of the ugliness we protest.

Mercy, humility, goodness, compassion, forgiveness, being a good neighbor, welcome to the stranger, food for the hungry, care for the most vulnerable. These ancient ideas shared by most world religions are still the ones that point where civilization starts.

A spiritual teacher asked her students: “How can you tell when the darkness of night has given way to the hope of a new day?”

The students were perplexed and pleaded: “Teacher, tell us how we can tell when a new day has come.”

The teacher said, “When you look into the eyes of another — no matter who they are, where they come from, no matter the color of their skin, who they love, how they vote, how they pray or what name they use for God — when you look into the eyes of another and you see a brother or you see a sister, a new day has arrived. But, if you look into the eyes of another and you don’t see a brother or sister, it is still night … The hard, holy and healing work of all of us is to call forth the dawn in the places where it is still night.”

Love is bruised with a black eye and bloody lip right now.

It is no small thing that love has each of us in her corner fighting for what is right, just and good.

Choosing to love fiercely is something that can never be taken from us and will, even in the darkest of nights, call forth the hope of a new day.

Editor’s Note

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