Dear All of Us,
When I was a kid,
a bunch of us
used to walk
each other home
every day
after school.
As those days
matured into years,
I realized
we're all walking
each other home
every day
every way
all the time
all the way.
It starts at birth
and stretches across
all the days
and ways
of our living
til we're all
Home Safe
Heaven
The Holy One
conceived us,
setting us on
our way
to grow go
together.
We literally make
all the difference
in the world
to each other.
We need others.
Others need us.
It's meant to be
great fun.
Sometimes
it's just that.
We're in on
Creation
live
and
immediate.
Sometimes
it just ain't so.
There's screw up.
It hurts like hell.
Either the way,
we walk it together.
This last week
it has been
hard as hell,
as hot as hell,
for my
wonderous
little
almost four
year old
Grand Son,
Ollie.
He was
stricken with
Staphylococcal
Scalded Skin
Syndrome.
Thats long for
horrible pain.
The skin breaks out
all over the body
and feels as though
it has been scalded.
Touch or movement
mean agony.
It's treated much as in
The Burn Unit
Our daughter
and son in law
have love soothed,
close companioned
Ollie day and night
in the hospital -
Assuring Presence
in his pained way.
Speaking of the
hospital staff,
our daughter
said they are
sensitive,
gifted, healing,
"saints"
They're all making
a world of difference
for Ollie
as he navigates this
perilous and painful
stretch of the road.
We're all walking
each other home
Our spiritual lives
are a glorious
and tight wrap
of being
woven One in
passionate intimacy
with God
and then hitting
the streets
of daily life
with God
helping each other
make a go, a
God Go
of it.
Sometimes it's
parents staying up
day and night
with a
suffering child.
Most of the time
it's practically
loving our neighbor
as ourselves,
doing unto others
as we would have
done to us,
knowing in person
and in real time,
what we do unto
the least of those
out here on the
Life's Lane
we are doing
unto Christ.
It can mean:
- being all ears and heart
listening to another's
joy or travail
- slowing down to catch up
with those limping along
- letting others give us a lift
when we are down
and out
- not taking anymore
than we need and
making sure others
have enough
- smiling at a baby
in a carriage
- listening to an
eight-year-old
practicing the violin
for an eternal half hour
- writing a not
too short story
on our phone
while a senior adult
fumbles through
twenty-seven coupons,
some dating back to a
Thanksgiving Special
in 2010
at the cash register
while the waiting line
stretches all the way
to the storeroom
- helping the "newbi"
at work get in
the swing of things
- finding ways to get
folks together
for a hay of
a good time
- tipping extravagantly
- together being a
real, salty sweet
church community,
refusing to let
our church be either
a museum for the past
or a wrong now
friendship desert
- whispering a prayer
for the bloke
laying on the horn
behind us
at a red light
(or even a green light!)
- having new neighbors
over for dinner
- paying attention
to others so deeply
that we come to
appreciate and celebrate
different personalities,
persuasions,
talents and tastes
that are far from ours
- doing what we can for
the inclusion and justice
of all different sorts of us
- big ways, little ways,
helping each other
along the way home
and letting them
the same for us.
Here are two little lifts
for the walk:
- An elderly
friend of mine
drives every day
to be with her husband
in a Hospice Care Facility.
Last week there was
a heavy snow
overnight in her town.
When she got up
neighbors were
plowing the driveway,
clearing off the car
and shoveling
the sidewalk
and front steps.
We're all walking
each other home.
- The Washington Post
publishes online and
offers for free each
Wednesday and Sunday
THE OPTIMIST
Check out the
January 26, 2025 issue,
especially
- An airport piano...
- Pizza driver gets...
true accounts of
Yep,
We're all walking
each other home
"I am the way..."
"Wherever two or three
are together in my name,
there I am in their midst."
Jesus
Great company as
We're all walking
each other home
******
It's great for us to be
walking home together
here at
frankly speaking
spirituality for the street
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
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Love to all
John Frank
