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Following Jesus is moving away from fear and toward love

          Henri Nouwen

 

Breathe it all in, love it all out

          Mary Oliver

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This is a world of looming fear

The Middle East is in chaos

Factors within America are seeking to create chaos

 

There are wars and rumors of wars

It seems as if all the miseries of human-kind are on the rise

 

I sit, thousands of miles away from home

Thinking of friends in trouble

Thinking of a voice I do not know, barely holding it together

Asking for help, when I have no practical help to give

 

I have no answers

I have no extra housing to offer

I cannot bring sanity to a political party

That has lost all semblance of order and propriety

 

We live in a world full of what we call “sin”

But what is sin but wrong choices?

What is sin but the denial of love?

 

And all I have to work with, really

Is love

 

Do I believe in love?

Do I believe that when love goes to work, healing happens?

 

Which may be the same as asking,

Do I believe in God?

For God is love

Do I believe in Jesus, love become flesh?

 

Do I believe that Love is present?

And love has the power to touch

Hamas, Netanyahu

Trump, Biden, Jordan, Jeffries

That pained voice on the phone

 

To touch and transform the power-hungry

The greedy hoarders

The abusers and users

 

To touch that angry, empty, scared place within me?

 

Can I hope again hope?

And believe love will win?

 

Grace  Ji-Sun Kim (as quoted by Diana Butler Bass) puts it well

 

“The Christian faith is not ‘seeing I believing,’ but rather

‘believing is seeing.’”

 

Love can win if we can see Jesus, love

“in the places that we dare not look and dare not think about.”

 

Can I see love in the face of that person I struggle with?

Can I see love working in the struggles of a family to survive mental illness?

Can I see love in a relationship that is not working and is cracked by fear and anger?

Can I see love in the posturing proud souls so desperately seeking power?

In the person frantically gobbling up money and turning a blind eye to the poor?

 

Can I see?

Can I move far enough away from my own fear to see?

Can I breathe it all in

And love it all out?

 

Can I?

 

The day I will breathe in

Left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe

And I will do my best, my very best

To see love

And be love