Articles from September 2016

When we en­counter snarling, bit­ing be­hav­ior, in­stinct may prompt us to re­act in a sim­i­lar way, or to keep a pro­tec­tive dis­tance or maybe even flee the scene. Yet Je­sus taught us an­oth­er way: to re­spond with love.

Some­times we do need to get away from aw­ful sit­u­a­tions – cer­tain­ly from abu­sive re­la­tion­ships, where the pow­er of an­oth­er is caus­ing harm, in­clud­ing phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al, and spir­i­tu­al dam­age. If you or some­one you care about is in such a re­la­tion­ship; know that there are peo­ple of love and trust who can help. Let’s all try to con­nect with each oth­er and look out for the vul­ner­a­ble among us.

Most of us see an­oth­er kind of be­hav­ior every day, mul­ti­ple times a day, that nips away at us, wound­ing the world in which we live. These are the nasty com­ments, the growls, the cranky at­ti­tudes, the peo­ple who seem to con­stant­ly tear things up. We may try to walk away, we may be tempt­ed to engage.

Un­der­neath such be­hav­ior, if we can look past the bared teeth and bark­ing, we usu­al­ly find fears; be­hind fear, there are of­ten wounds, hurts, and ne­glect and hungers of var­i­ous kinds.

Je­sus showed us a way to face fears and the bar­ri­ers that can come be­tween us – and it may take only a tiny bit of faith – to reach for un­der­stand­ing and re­spond with love. Some­times all it takes is a gen­tle touch, a soft­er voice, an in­ner calm, a will­ing­ness to lis­ten. We may help in­ter­rupt, change di­rec­tion, and guide the way to an­oth­er path.

And we don’t have to try this alone. We have been called to walk in com­mu­ni­ty with oth­ers, to share in the prac­tices of Je­sus, side by side. Some of our com­pan­ions on this way have two legs and some, we may find, have four. Through them, may we learn to trust a lit­tle more in the love of God we have been giv­en and fol­low in the foot­steps of Je­sus Christ.

T+