Not long ago, somebody asked me what I would wish for if I could have one wish.

Anything at all.

A couple things crossed my mind immediately:

Health for me and my family. The biggest house on Wawasee. A 1989 Porsche slantnose turbo (the one with the five-speed). A 1957 Gibson Flying V prototype electric guitar in mint condition in its original hardshell case. A brand new Big Dog Pitbull custom motorcycle.

But before I spoke, I realized how selfish, shallow and materialistic I was being.

So when I finally did open my mouth, I said:

"I would just wish that everybody would get along."

It sounds pretty simple, but think about what a wonderful place the world would be if everybody got along.

I don't mean everybody has to agree, just get along.

Sometimes I have a tough time understanding the way people behave.

For example, I have looked at a Bible enough to know that, especially in the New Testament, we are taught to love our neighbor and be tolerant.

Yet I encounter good "Christians" who are some of the most judgmental, intolerant people I have ever seen.

How does that work?

All the intolerance would melt away in my everybody-gets-along world.

My mother-in-law, who is nearly 80 years old, takes medicine that requires a blood test once in a while. She doesn't live in this town.

Usually she gets the blood test done during the week, but since my wife and I were going to be visiting her on Sunday, she called ahead to see if the blood test place was open on Sunday.

See, she doesn't drive and her husband is ill, so it's a bit of a hassle for her to get to the blood test place.

Someone there told her no problem, you can get your blood test on Sunday.

So on Sunday, off we go to the blood test place.

But when we get there, a building right next to the hospital, it's all locked up.

So we cruised over to the emergency room at the hospital to see what was up.

There was only one person at the reception desk when we got there and two workers behind the desk.

One of them was helping the other person and the other was doing, well, nothing.

But she ignored us. Wouldn't even look our way, and acted annoyed that we were there.

Finally, after an inordinate amount of time wasting, she said to her co-worker, "Well, I guess I'll help these people," with the emphasis on these as if it was a major inconvenience.

We explained that the other place was closed and she made some facetious crack about it, after all, being Sunday.

When we explained that we called ahead and they said it was no problem, she said that, yes, she could have the blood test, but it would have to be at the lab in the hospital.

OK, so let's get on with it.

Then she told Ma she needed her next of kin's address. The next of kin on file is my sister-in-law who lives in the same town. They have a county numbering system similar to ours and neither Ma nor my wife has my sister-in-law's address memorized.

By now Ma, who hates getting stuck with needles and is nervous just driving by a hospital, is obviously upset.

She starts fidgeting and fumbling around in her purse, looking for the address, becoming more and more distraught.

The worker rolled her chair over to a filing cabinet. We figure she's going to look up the address, right?

Wrong.

She rolls back to the counter, apparently having done something unrelated at the filing cabinet, and says, "Well, did you find it?"

Ma says, "Well no, ... I don't ... I know it's in here ..."

"Well, what's the phone number, then?" the employee snapped.

That number my wife has committed to memory. She quickly rattled it off.

"What?"

She rattled it off again.

The employee wrote it down and told us how to get to the lab.

Then, when we went to the lab, the woman in there was the kindest, sweetest person you could imagine. She treated my mother-in-law with respect and courtesy.

She seemed to sense that my mother-in-law was anxious and took the time to calmly relax and reassure her.

She truly was a blessing.

It was the stark contrast between these two employees at the same hospital that struck me.

Why can't everyone be like employee No. 2?

And I see this type of behavior lots of places.

People get bent out of shape over fairly inconsequential stuff.

Make a mistake in traffic, and you run the risk of initiating a road rage incident.

Yet show me one driver who hasn't made a mistake. The next time somebody cuts you off during a lane change, think back to the last time you did the exact same thing.

You know you have. You know you forgot about the blind spot when you changed lanes. You remember your heart skipping a beat when the driver behind you hit the horn.

Now you're the one hitting the horn. What are you going to do? Tailgate the guy? Give him the one-finger salute? Repeatedly slam your hands on the steering wheel and rant and rave?

I don't get that. Show a little compassion.

And that's just the simple, annoying stuff that would be cured if my one simple wish could come true.

Think of what life would be like in the Middle East if everybody got along.

How much violence and destruction has been vented in the Middle East in the name of one god or another. How can that be?

Doesn't every religion teach the same thing? Aren't we all instructed to be loving and tolerant?

So why aren't we?

That, I'm afraid, is a question only God can answer. [[In-content Ad]]