We are, all of us, the salt of the earth.

It all started with the substitute in physics, an address for Walter Reed Hospital scrawled across the board, and a plea for the students to care. We listened politely to the elderly gentleman tell of the lonely veterans returning from Iraq missing arms and legs, with broken minds and spirits, barely older than ourselves: soldiers who didn’t have the luxury of going home for the holidays or who would never receive visitors or Christmas cards. We listened politely; and then turned away.

   It wasn’t until later, when my Girl Scout troop was brainstorming for a winter service project, that I remembered the sub and the address I had scribbled in my agenda half-knowing I would never get around to writing a letter. It wasn’t long before we were making ambitious plans to carry out a large-scale project, each one of us more excited than the last. We would talk to the principal of Fairfield Ludlowe, extend homeroom so the entire school could write letters, make special stationary paper, raise money for stamps and envelopes, etc. Still, with all my outward optimism, I knew somewhere down inside that the project would falter and die, that the right person would think it was a bad idea, or it would cost too much, or, most likely, people just wouldn’t care enough.

   I am so glad that I could not have been more wrong. When I presented the idea to our principal, she was very encouraging; even offered to lend us paper and envelopes. From then on, it seemed like everyone I talked to believed that it was just as good an idea as when we originally devised it, just as good a cause. The teacher I talked to about being the advisor to the project, whose son had recently returned from Iraq and was now stationed in Hawaii, thanked me sincerely every day when I came to discuss the status of “Operation Holiday Greetings.” When I went to the English teachers’ conference to explain the project and ask teachers to donate a portion of their class time to allow and encourage students to write letters, I did not expect such overwhelming support for such a tall order. The department head even introduced herself to me after and asked if the teachers from Warde could participate as well. Throughout the day teachers would come up to me with that same enthusiasm in their eyes, thanking me for all I was doing to organize the project. And best of all was when I called a kind gentleman from the Knights of Columbus, who had experience with sending these kinds of ‘To Any Recovering Soldier” letters. “You remind me of my granddaughter,” he said. “I always tell her: ‘Your heart’s in the right place.’” In his own words, he was echoing Jesus. You are the salt of the earth.

   Yet, despite all of this, I still had doubts about whether everything would pull through, especially after a snowstorm robbed English teachers out of a whole day and a half of class time. I could not believe it was all really happening. Even when I was sprinting down the hallways with the bundle of hundreds of letters clutched in my hands, overcome with excitement, giddy with relief, and bursting with joy, I could not believe it was happening. Even when I sat down around my kitchen table with all the other Girl Scouts who volunteered to screen and proof-read the 400 letters before packaging them all up to send to the American Red Cross, I could not believe it. It didn’t really sink in until the words in the letters did—touching the hearts of all of those lucky enough to read them.

   I wish all of you could have read every single last card, or at least THE letter. One of the girls came across an amazing note by a guy in our grade, let’s call him George—an intelligent, athletic, but rather sarcastic kid who didn’t take anything too seriously. About one page typed, it was eloquent and personal, but most of all extraordinarily genuine. It spoke from the heart, about the incredible courage a soldier must have and how most of us, especially George himself, could never be that brave. It radiated true appreciation for the veteran’s sacrifice and offered blessings and hope for recovery. It was, in short, the perfect letter. It garnered a smile from each girl as it was passed around the table and by the time each of us got to the end of the piece we all were already in love with him.

   Though not every letter was like George’s—there was everything from the cheerful freshman who chatted about the snow day yesterday and drew colorful snowflakes, the girl who talked about her own struggles of depression and her hope, the junior who addressed his “Dear Hero,” the senior who confessed her fears about college and leaving home, and the special-education kid who wrote a poem about how bunnies made him happy—the truth was that every letter was the perfect letter, because explicitly or not, every line said thank you, every sentence said I care.

   The letters were, all of them, the salt of the earth. In some starch-white hospital room a soldier smiled because of them. Like tiny grains of salt have the power to change the flavor of a pot of bland soup, those letters—those tiny grains of kindness—had the power to make someone’s day a little bit brighter. I think that what Jesus was trying to tell us was that all of us have that power.

   Indeed, the authors were the same young men and women that we stood in the lunch line with every day, the same slouching backwards-hat-wearing window-watchers, the same gum-snapping cheerleaders. All of them people that we had thought we knew, when we really only had scratched the surface. For one afternoon we had in our hands windows into their hearts, a chance to glimpse a different side to them that completely shattered the image of apathy that we had held in our minds. Here was proof that the gentlemen’s words were truer than he could have possibly imagined; not just mine, not just the Girl Scouts’, not just the teachers’, but all of them, all of the students who wrote and drew and hoped; all of their hearts were in the right place.

   We are, all of us, the salt of the earth.