{"id":1061,"date":"2013-07-22T15:03:16","date_gmt":"2013-07-22T20:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/mybirmingham\/?p=1061"},"modified":"2013-07-22T15:03:16","modified_gmt":"2013-07-22T20:03:16","slug":"believing-leads-to-caring-birmingham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/2013\/07\/22\/believing-leads-to-caring-birmingham\/","title":{"rendered":"Believing leads to caring, Birmingham"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Legion<\/a>I recently stumbled across an online discussion<\/a> that included what turned out to be an issue of semantics. It hinged on the understanding of the words believe<\/strong> and care<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I had my own thoughts on the discussion, but figured I\u2019d do some research first. It helps to know the definitions of the words we\u2019re talking about. The definitions I’ve included here seemed to fit the context of the discussion best (though I did link to the full lists of definition for both words just in case):<\/p>\n

Believe – to have a firm conviction as to the goodness, efficacy, or ability of something<\/a>
\nCare – to feel interest or concern<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It was interesting to me how believe<\/strong> was a verb showing faith or acceptance, while care<\/strong> was one showing action. It got me thinking about a phrase that\u2019s appeared several times in both the spiritual<\/a> and civic realms:<\/p>\n

\u201cFaith without works is dead.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We who believe in the future of Birmingham must also be able to show what we\u2019re able to do to support that belief. That\u2019s the difference between believing and caring. I\u2019d argue you can only believe or not believe; there\u2019s not much grey area. There are, however, many ways to show how much you care about someone, or in Birmingham\u2019s case, something. You\u2019re basically demonstrating the extent of your belief – something I\u2019d argue is desperately needed locally as we prepare to move forward.<\/p>\n

I care enough to write about my beliefs and dreams for the future of Birmingham here and elsewhere. There are others who leverage the power of critical mass via petitions<\/a> and online forums<\/a> to demonstrate concern about issues they believe affect the future of the city. A few brave souls have decided to throw their hats into the proverbial political ring<\/a> hoping they can show residents and school children just how much they believe in the city by not caring about the messiness that comes with municipal campaigns in Alabama\u2019s largest city. Still others choose to cheer on every positive development in the metro area while willingly doing verbal and digital battles with those not as eager to admit changes are coming. Sometimes when local businesses show how much they care about a new effort underway, you can even give someone reasons to believe in Birmingham all over again<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important as this cultural revolution continues to evolve in Jones Valley to point out that how you choose to show you care shouldn’t matter as much as the fact that you do. It\u2019s tough to show concern for (and possibly tougher to disagree with the common opinion about) something you don\u2019t have a strong opinion. It’s nice to also remember that if everyone went about doing the same thing, life (and this city) would get pretty boring – quickly.<\/p>\n

You have to believe in Birmingham before you can truly care about its future. Luckily, it ends up becoming a viciously grateful and encouraging circle of action – thank goodness for that!<\/p>\n

Andr\u00e9 Natta is the stationmaster for<\/em> bhamterminal.com.<\/p>\n

Photo:<\/strong> Legion Field Lion<\/em>\/ lensman20<\/a>\/Flickr.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>

Semantics aside, it’s important for those who have faith in the future of the city of Birmingham and the metro area to be willing to demonstrate it to others. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birmingham"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p50I8-h7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/dearbham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}