“You
do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all
going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered
by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.” ~ Thomas Merton
I
was awake early this morning with many tasks to complete. I received a text from a new friend concerned
because she had heard there had been a shooting with fatalities on my
street. I had not heard of this. I was outside reading her text; my street and
neighborhood were quiet, and the only action I had seen were buses traveling to
pick up children who were anxious for school to be over, and adults who were
heading to work. As for me, I had been
kneeling quietly at my tree in my front yard pulling weeds away that had
overgrown my flowers. As I pulled the tattered gloves off of my hands, I noticed there were
three fingers that were covered and embedded in mud. Yep, you guessed it. There were three holes I had noticed earlier in the fingers of the garments. I quickly checked the text from my friend and
then looked up a local news station on my phone as I sat on the step outside. I pulled up the story she was referring to
and shook my head. It wasn't even 9 AM and yet more lives lost in our city due to
more violence. I quickly responded to
her text and assured her that the shooting was not on my block, but several
blocks north of me, so far up that I could not see or hear any of the emergency
personnel working. I thanked her for
caring enough to check on me and she responded by saying she felt bad for
starting my day off with negativity. I
could only respond that my day started off early with pup kisses and that now I
knew what God wanted me to pray for that day.
She responded back with a prayer request for her. What a privilege for someone I barely know to
ask me to pray for them!
How
dismal we can be sometimes in our outlook. Just like those three fingers that
were muddied from the holes in my glove, sometimes we get holes in our
souls. We allow the negativity to seep
in and muddy us on the inside, tainting our vision and our view. Instead, we should allow it to point us back
to our Father for direction. Yep, still
working on this one too….big time!
I
loved listening to the music of DC Talk growing up. Ok, who am I fooling? I still love it, even though those artists
have since split and formed other groups of their own. They had a song called, “What Have We Become?” I made the mistake of looking at the Facebook
comments under the article about the murders this morning, and I found myself asking that same question. People are so quick to judge and blame and
that is a HUGE source of irritation to me.
There is definitely a time and place to evaluate and break things down,
so we can improve our processes in different areas, but we can go too far in
the fault finding. OK, my soapbox speech
for the day is….drum roll please……. The answers do not lie solely in gun
control debates, or in pointing fingers of city leaders not doing enough, or
even in the seemingly crime ridden areas of our city. While conversations about these topics are
all good and do need to be discussed, we need to look closer, we need to look
deeper…..not at just what is happening around us and how others are responding
to it…….but taking a good look at ourselves.
Why do we always expect someone else to be the problem solvers in our
society?
Where
do we place our hope? Instead of
pointing fingers and expecting others to solve our problems, why can't the
change start with us….one person at a time?
What kind of neighbor are we? Are
we invested in our fellow human beings? A
great example is last night when my car failed to start several times at a park
with my pups. A few young men stopped to
help me out (yes, I do realize how old I sound in wording it like that), and
didn't leave until friends had arrived to help me out. I gave them a huge thanks. It planted a tiny hope that kindness still
existed among strangers.
It
seems simple, really, but we live in a day where we are so individualized, that
we hardly stop to speak to other people any more….use common courtesy with
strangers, like please and thank you. I
stayed outside intentionally this morning to say good morning to the men who
picked up my trash and hauled it away. I
also intentionally told them thank you and that I hoped their day was starting
off right. You know what they told
me? They said it already had because
someone went out of their way to thank them.
One person at a time….you never know the difference you can make in
someone’s day by stopping and being intentional with them.
Of course, I am
not asking people to go out and do things outside of the realm of safety with
people we do not know…..but will say that I dare you today to go out of your
way for someone. I have the hope of
Christ in me. Isn't it about time that
others noticed? Do you have that same
hope? If they can't see the difference
in me, then I am a very poor ambassador indeed for the First Love of my
life. It’s time to stop expecting everyone
else to do it all for us. Time to step
it up….time to back up our words with action.
If we truly love our Lord, then we are called to love our neighbors
too. ALL of them. All of the time. Nope, I’ve not perfected it either, I’ve got
a long ways to go, but that doesn't mean I should just sit back and cast blame when
things go wrong in my city and community.
It means, where have we gone wrong?
What have we become? What does
God want us to become? What will it take
for us to get there? Take the first
step, do something today, even if it’s giving a smile, a handshake, a thanks, a
prayer. We’ve got our work cut out for
us.
We're
called to be salt and light by the Maker of Heaven and Earth. I'll leave you with HIS words today. Let yourself be loved today by the Giver of Life....then pass it on. (I added the
bold and caps for emphasis):
13 “YOU ARE the salt of the earth. But if
the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer
good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
14 “YOU ARE the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be
hidden. 15 Neither
do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its
stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In
the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in Heaven.” ~ Matthew 5:13-16
