During A Disaster, Who Cares About Politics?

Focus on our common humanity, not our differences

Shefali O'Hara
3 min readOct 4, 2022
Photo by Saikiran Kesari on Unsplash

I’ve been in accidents and had strangers help me. One time, my vehicle got stuck in a perilous place and several burly men showed up to carry it to safety. I was very grateful to them.

You know what they didn’t do?

They didn’t ask me about my political affiliation before helping me.

Because when it comes to helping people in a bad situation — our common humanity should be what matters.

Reading about Hurricane Ian — I’ve been praying for the people in Florida, in Puerto Rico, and in other places damaged by the storm. I’ve been praying for human beings. I have not been praying just for one group or another.

I go to a church where most of the congregation probably votes for Democrats. I don’t know for sure because we don’t often talk about it, but from casual conversations, that is the basic way the church leans. But would we turn away a MAGA Republican who needed help? No!

Same with churches I’ve known where most of the members were conservative… I had a friend who was part of a very conservative Catholic congregation. Back in the late ’80s, he volunteered with a group that helped care for AIDS patients. He spent several hours every week…

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Shefali O'Hara

Cancer survivor, writer, engineer. BSEE from MIT, MSEE, and MA in history. Love nature, animals, books, art, and interesting discussions.