Bryan Stevenson

We see things that we won't otherwise see.

And I don't think it's just the way we deal with poverty and injustice.

I think in life.

to be a good leader, to be a good parent, to be a good teacher.

We have to be close to the people we are trying to serve.

We have to understand what they're seeing, what they're hearing.

And when we're distant, we can't do that as well.

We judge.

To get proximate, we have to sometimes choose to get closer to people who are struggling, people who have fallen down, uh,

problems in the world that need our attention.

We don't shield ourselves from the world's problems, but we have enough character and enough generosity and enough courage that we will actually go places where people are suffering and struggling and help if we can help.

I think it is our better nature.

It absolutely is.

It can feel challenging and exhausting, but it's also really empowering.

If we have the ability to catch a stone,

to exercise that ability and to know we're not only helping the person who would have been the target of that violence, but we're also helping the person who threw the stone.

Because what they don't realize yet is that to get to redemption, to get to grace, to get to the beloved community that we talk so much about, we can't throw stones at one another because we're angry and afraid.

And sometimes people get overwhelmed and they can't remember that until they pick the stone up and they throw it.

And I not only want to help the person throwing the stone at, but I want to help them have the opportunity to recover from the mistake of harsh judgment, of violent judgment against someone in a way that's less consequential.

And