We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love.
Mother Theresa
~
“Imagine you’re walking through a forest.
Full of tall strong beautiful trees
Resilient against the wind and the rain
Beneath the soil
They are tied together
Intertwined
Beneath the soil
There are millions of roots
Connected
And they are better together
And when I think of these trees
I think of us
And how we try to go through life by ourselves
The times we’ve felt broken
The times we felt left
The times we’ve been hurt by someone else
We proclaim this loud and bold
But unlike the trees
We decide
To go it alone
I marvel at the pain
We can too easily shut out
I marvel at the years
We choose to lose sight
Everyday we see people’s wounds
But we never see past them
We never see through
We pick up our pace
We pick up our stones
We cross the other side of the road
We say there is no more room at our table
We love at a distance
We are only fair weather friends to weather the storms of this life
Because loving people’s imperfections is inconvenient and messy
Yet there’s no line of Scripture where Jesus commands us to seek our ease
No line where He commands that we seek our self
We look at people’s broken behaviours
ignore,
belittle
condemn
judge,
Look for quick cures but we do not see
Every broken behaviour comes from an unmet need
Behind every broken is someone who looks like our saviour
We go it alone
But alone is not what we were created for
Alone is not what the church was created to be
Isn’t it the one who cares for the poor and needy
The little and the least
Whom Christ will say come sit at my table
Come sit with me
When I hear this my immediate thought is
Where can I find a hungry
thirsty
naked
foreign
sick
imprisoned
stranger
Whom I can relieve
But In my attempts to love the needy
I discover my own poverty.
In clothing the naked,
I discover am naked of all virtue
In visiting the prisoner
I realise I am imprisoned by prideful thoughts
In visiting the sick
I learn I am sick with selfish desires.
I am who Jesus is referring to
I am the Least of These
It is not that poor guy on the street corner
Or the lonely girl in the corner,
who are the least of these.
No, it is me.
I am the least of Christ’s brethren.
I may not be poor naked sick or imprisoned in body
But I am poor naked sick and imprisoned in soul
I am starved of loving kindness
parched by lack of forgiveness
Sick with the disease of lust
Naked of compassion
Imprisoned by habits of self-indulgence.
And if I am the least,
If I really know that I am the least
Then the least that I can do
Is not go it alone
The least I can do is share my bread
When I am the one who hungers for righteousness
The least I can do is share my cup
When I am the one thirsting for Life.
The least I can do is share my stuff
When my I am so poor of anything valuable
The least I can do is sit with the lonely
When I am too lonely of the Father’s house
I have no clothes to cover my own sinful nakedness,
I have no medicine to heal my own blindness
I have no key to liberate my imprisoned soul.
Yet
He calls us His temple
Because we are pieces that come together to build and hold up one another
He calls us His body
Because we are all different parts and no purpose or function is like the other
He calls us His vine
Because we are only living when we are connected to one another
In Him
Like the trees
We were made to stand tall here
We were made to be a part of this forest here
Standing firm against all odds
Creation representing creator God
But our own fears of being hurt
Casts a shadow on the reality
That the fissures I see in my neighbour
Are the same fractures that covers me.
Wrapped tight in this fear, we act out against love.
And when we act out against love
We act out against the One Who loves us. “
“God is love.”
1 in 3
3 in 1
A community
Just as love is meaningless without something to love.
So we are meaningless without our brother
When our brother is our life
Just as one God exists as three Persons in one,
So we were created to be wholly ourselves
When we are wholly one with the other
We don’t pray my father
But our father
We are His children
Our husband
We are his bride
Our shepherd
We are His sheep
He is the one who never leaves the one behind
No one is saved alone.
Everyone’s freedom is tangled
Everyone salvation tied up
Roots beneath the soil
So there can be no fences
There can be no hedges
No neat marked out lines
Of what is yours and what is mine
Because where my life ends
Yours can begin
When we need each other to survive
So let’s close the distance between you and me
Trade in our fear for curiosity
Tear down our fences to build bridges
Open our door for those who have no place of their own
Step into each other’s darkness with kindness as a burning lantern
Love others through their brokenness
Because our brokenness makes us more alike than unlike.
The powerless, the wounded and the weak
All those who cannot speak
Come sit beside me and tell me your story
Tell me of the million and one ways a soul can bruise
And I can tell the million and one ways a soul sees the Light.
The Light loves with abandon
His wounded hands love the wounded with no bounds.
Because we were created for one another
We belong to each other
No matter the weather
Like trees in a forest
Stronger
Taller
Together”
~
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