Friday, October 12, 2012

The hurt and the pain

Life brings some tragic blows on many in this world.
I heard that there was another shooting in Bridgeport this past evening and affected a city Pastor's relative.

This week I attended a healing poetry workshop where we wrote about healing through the power of poetry.  I reacted to several poems and walked around the City Lights Gallery in Bridgeport where there were about 70 artworks from collages to paintings that depicted the violence that people were affected by.

Then I reflect back to when Jesus was on the cross and how he got insults hurled at him and was beaten beyond recognition.  And how he showed courage and love towards his oppressors.  
And I thought of what Jesus must have felt and of how after being with his disciples and followers and the religious establishment in Jerusalem.  For some of them did not get what he was all about.  After all that he had done for them and of how His father created the world and had markers along the way that pointed to Him.

And I fast forward that to today. And of how our society does not always get or understand what we are all about. Yet the miracle is that the Gospel of Jesus still goes out to the world and is changing many lives.

So my challenge to this audience is to reach out and identify with one hurt and pained individual and offer them hope with your words. Just like Jesus did on the cross. And along the dusty roads of Bethlehem.  Without taxi or bus or car.  But on foot and donkey mainly.
It can be done by cold cups of water or just sitting at another's feet or hugging them offering the solace and balm for the soul.  Of Gilead.

God's peace and shalom.

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