Tag Archives: gift

We are all connected.

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Today, Bishop Barron shared this poignant thought with us; “God’s love can truly dwell in us only in the measure that we give it away.”

That loop of grace.

So many opportunities present themselves each day to give the gift of your personal care, support and love. Not with the intention acheiving some KPI, in the form of money, immaterial transactions, offerings. But to genuinely just give the gift of yourself to and for another.

Opening a door expresses you acknowledge they are worth your effort.

A simple smile shares some actual joy of the moment that is meant to be shared.

Allowing them to get in line ahead of you, turn first at the intersection, take that parking spot, or offering them your cart moves them ahead of your needs at that instant. A glimpse of their importance to you. Making it about them.

Saying “hi, how are you?” passing a stranger in a store. Might be the only voice they hear all day.

Or better yet, stopping to actually listen if that stranger starts to share how they are, what is troubling them, the challenge they are about to face, how rough the day has been so far, or just a “thanks!” for saying “Hi”.

Perhaps the breakfast place is busy but short staffed. You can see it in the wait staffs eyes and body. They are exhausted, but yet, make you feel like you were sitting in your own kitchen. Eye contact, a smile, kind words and some generosity when you tip might help them overcome that distress. Not that money buys everything. Just that you recognize their effort, attention and commitment. You love the way they work.

There aren’t gonna be any bill boards or text messages alerting you to be aware of these moments. You just need to be present. Caught up less in yourself so you can be more so for others around you. Small things yes. But they can build. They will see, feel and experience the best version of you. You may help reveal the best in them and bring about true connection.

Doing it for others is the best way to actually do it for yourself. It truly is a loop.

Believe it as such.

We are all connected.

I see.

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“Amazing grace! how sweet the sound, That saved a wretch; like me!

I once was lost, but now am found,  Was blind, but now I see.”

– John Newton 

This hymn swells my heart, fills my soul and wells up my eyes with true gratitude.  Speaks to the twin blessings of both a divine and self forgiveness.  How the sense of being saved rings true in a new found presence for life. 

Whatever the source of one’s  wretchedness,  state of sin, spiritual need, distress or desperate need for rescue and redemption, His presence, love  and loop of grace leads one to a saving source of repentance.  Bringing forth an entirely different sensory affirmation of life in the world about us.  An unmistakable melody of gratitude heightened by a new found vision. 

Being lost is an orientation far more than simply geographical.  It may not be readily apparent from an external perspective.  But internalized, it can assume  an excruciatingly  painful and perilously winding nature, replete with false starts, stops and changes in direction.  Dishonesty, self righteousness and a self absorbing sense of ego leads one to isolation and a perpetual nonexistence.  Being present, engaged and invested are exchanged for absence, disconnection and apathy.  

With renewed vision and a truer recognition of this existence  born of His grace, that blindness gives way to an awareness of life and all it is meant to be.  That loop born of His mercy for you  is such that when you witness and receive  it for yourself, you cannot help but to embrace the thoughts, words and deeds that can be freely given to those around you, so they might too  live it for themselves.  

Given the circumstances of the author of this replenishing hymn and that of the author of this post, we can all enslave others or enslave ourselves by and through sin.  No matter our origin, that we all share in common.  That is what gives us our original nature.

And as such, He encircles us with true redemption through grace in a heavenly embrace.  A gift that once received that is intended to be given back.  Not in terms of or in the form of a transaction. But just as freely as we ourselves were compensated as such. As a gift.

So that we all may know the sweetness of its sound.  And follow its path leading our way back into His light.  

Was truly blind.  

But now?

I see.