Author: Martha Palmer
During this season of Advent, those writing these weekly devotionals have been asked to reflect on the themes of a devotional by A Sanctified Art that is being offered to the congregation.
Here is the link:
Words for the Beginning: An Advent Devotional (flippingbook.com)
The theme for this second week of the season of Advent is “Do the Good That is Yours to Do.”
In our church we are blessed to be constantly receiving the gifts of so many people doing so many good things. Whether it is Susie Allman’s gorgeous sustainable flower arrangements in recycled plastic jugs that she keeps giving away, or Bob Matthias’s seemingly effortlessly arrangement of Plymouth Hall’s new floor, we all benefit from their generous expenditure of time and effort. The blankets from the Knitting Club, the prayers of the prayer group, the gluten-free cookie table at every church social, the organization of pilgrimages to sorrowful sites of American misdeeds, or the inspired direction of the Youth Group musical, the gifts are myriad. Every act is a blessing for both the recipients and the givers. Each one of us has a skill or a smile or a helping hand to offer at the right time, and each one of us enjoys the fruits of others’ labors, all within our own tight-knit community.
Imagine a world where everyone could be comforted by the same warmth, compassion, and thoughtfulness that we feel in our beloved Square Tower on Sunday mornings. How can we extend that circle to include more neighbors, more children, more college students, more tired, anxious, and overwhelmed Boulderites? More Americans, more citizens of the world? We just put one foot in front of the other, doing one more kindness given the opportunity. No one person can solve all the world’s problems, or perhaps any of the world’s problems, but we can do one small thing, and then do it again, and again.
What do we do? Anything at all that offers a token of friendship or caring to anything alive of any phylum, age, gender, or ethnicity. As the song says about the saints, “And one was a doctor, and one was a queen, and one was a shepherdess on the green; … And one was a soldier, and one was a priest, … You can meet them in school, on the street, in the store, in church, by the sea, in the house next door; they are saints of God, whether rich or poor, and I mean to be one too.” Whether it is your patients, your subjects, or your sheep, you can be there for them. We can all be saints.
Why compassion in particular? Judy Cannoto says it best, in Field of Compassion: How the New Cosmology Is Transforming Spiritual Life (Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books, 2010), p. 8:
“Compassion changes everything. Compassion heals. Compassion mends the broken and restores what has been lost. Compassion draws together those who have been estranged or never even dreamed they were connected. Compassion pulls us out of ourselves and into the heart of another, placing us on holy ground where we instinctively take off our shoes and walk in reverence. Compassion springs out of vulnerability and triumphs in unity.”
But it isn’t just about how the compassion you extend can make someone else’s life better, it is also how profoundly its extension can affect you, as expressed so well in The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World (New York: Avery, 2016), p. 298, by Dalai Lama [Tenzin Gyatso] and Desmond Tutu with Douglas Abrams:
“And God says, please, my child, help me. Help me to spread love and laughter and joy and compassion. And you know what, my child? As you do this — hey, presto — you discover joy. Joy, which you had not sought, comes as the gift, as almost the reward for this non-self-regarding caring for others.”
The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet. Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC
Dear Lord, please help us discern what brings us joy, and how we can best share it with others. Amen