As a writer and someone who likes to encourage others, I am always looking for positive, flowery ways
to sprinkle some encouragement for others. But the truth isn’t always pretty or
easy. The truth is sometimes hard and painful and in blunt force. Jesus didn’t
beat around the bush; he didn’t sugar-coat it and if you’ve read the Old
Testament, you will know that God didn’t either.
We have slipped away from our willingness to hear and deal
with the hard truth. We want it pretty, easy and disguised in dripping
sweetness and political correctness or we don’t want to listen. Sociologically
speaking, we prefer to avoid what is termed the shadow world; you know, street people, the poor, the needy, the
hungry, the sick, the incarcerated, the abused, the uneducated, the addicted,
and so on. If we don’t see it or hear about it, then we can just carry on in
our own selfish little bubble. No one wants to let their guard down for fear of
the very things they avoid. We all do it. Yet what we need to understand is
that it is through the giving that we are given, not the clinging.
The ugly truth is that we need to get off ourselves and that
is what it means to take up the cross; the death of the ego and the constant
fear in which it resides. We avoid and turn away from helping others out of the
illusion of fear. We turn our backs on those in need so that we don’t even have
to think about it, that maybe in ignoring the problem or situation, it will go
away. That is not love. That is fear and selfishness.
Clean air and water, healthy and plentiful food, shelter,
safety, healthcare and education are the bottom line for everyone and until we
get these issues solved, we should not be focused on anything else. Instead we
have become this whining, moaning society obsessed with materialism in every
form, political divisions and the nitpicking, slandering debates within them,
and personal insult to a ridiculous degree of political incorrectness.
Meanwhile, people suffer, children suffer.
In my selfishness, I am just as guilty as anyone else. I worry whether my hair is having a bad hair day or my outfit doesn’t match quite the way I would like it; others spend a Sunday upset that their sports team lost. People suffer and we entertain ourselves. That is not to say we shouldn’t enjoy life but we can each find a way to help others and make it as much a priority as the many trivial things that clutter our lives, thoughts and humanity.
I feel guilty for even making a video about meditative
coloring yesterday when there are so many in need. I feel guilty for even working on crafts
or for thinking about sharing the beauty. Beauty means not much to someone who
has no food or water. But I know my job right now is to bloom where I am
planted and that is what I am trying to do. It says in the bible to stay where
you are when you were called, not to change professions, etc. Usually the work
begins in our own home and learning to walk through our house with a perfect
heart and helping others through each day as well as we can. When we have mastered that, along with the self, then perhaps we will be re-planted in a bigger field but whatever we are to do, caring for others is the utmost priority, both in the home and around the world.
About Cheryl Yale-Bruedigam
Cheryl Yale-Bruedigam has been writing spiritually for thirty years. With undergraduate studies in English and women's studies, she devoted over a decade of research and writing to women’s studies and spirituality. Author of What If We Are the Angels and The New Age of Christ (among others), she is now teaching and sharing A Woman's Path to Wholeness Through Biblical Teachings.
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