Day 083c: Above all things … (July 06, 2019)
“We are above all things always able to love (which is far more important than our longing to be loved) –and that is the actual Good News of the gospel. And we are able to love others not just the way they turn up on Sundays in their best clothes and on their best behavior while putting their best feet forward, but love them as they far more often are – like us, ever a bit shabbier and ever far weaker than their strongest and brightest. And to come together as people who understand that this gospel is actually true is to come together like people who have just won the Irish Sweepstakes. It has us throwing our arms around each other like people who have just discovered that every single man and woman we meet along the path is not just another familiar or unfamiliar face but rather is our own long-lost brother and our own long-lost sister. Because despite the fact that we have all walked in different gardens and knelt at different graves, we have all essentially come from the same place and are all essentially heading out into the same blessed mystery that awaits everyone. And it is just this joy that is so apt to be missing in life – the joy of not just managing to believe at least part of the time that life is holy, but of actually running into that holiness head-on and living it all-out.” ~ inspired by Frederick Buechner
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