I'm just easing into Monday with a cup of Ethiopian coffee, a little B. Knox on Spotify, and some thoughts from this mornings meditation with our Pastor of Stoke.
Earlier this week I shared this pic on Facebook
This morning's meditation was from Luke's gospel and was a familiar story -- The Good Samaritan.
As I thought about this story, conscious of our tendency to use this Princess Theology, I wondered why we (yeah, me too) never see ourselves as the priest or Levite even though that's who we are every time we drive past a person in need on the highway or as we walk down a sidewalk in our city or town.
Sure we can say that we were in a hurry, that it seemed unsafe, that we didn't see them -- or we can just come to terms with the simple truth that we aren't that great at loving our neighbor and maybe it's something that we should work on.
Perhaps the best place to begin is to just open our eyes and begin to see people that are in distress. The truth is that some of our close friends and family are hurting and we haven't been paying attention. If we don't see the pain of the people we are close to, chances are good that we won't see the hurt in the strangers we encounter.
How about for this week's Monday Motivation we just work on paying attention to the moment; being aware of the people and the energy around us. It's a place to begin -- seeing people, listening to them, feeling what they feel, and then (and this is the difficult part) deciding if we will be a good neighbor.
Have a grand week,
John <><
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