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”

~