| BEING
THERE FOR OTHERS
WHY WE NEED EACH OTHER
LIFE BEYOND JUST "SELF"
A
faithful friend is an image of God.
From
the highest to the lowest, self exists to be abdicated and, by that
abdication, becomes the more truly self.
--C. S. LEWIS (1898–1963)
.
. . burdened with the unbearable weight of ourselves.
--JOSEPH JOUBERT (1754–1824)
A
friend is a person with whom I may think aloud.
--RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803–1882)
A
man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.
--BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1706–1790)
A
friend is one who
knows you as you are
understands where you’ve been
accepts who you’ve become
and still, gently invites you to grow.
What
other dungeon is so dark as one’s own heart! What jailer so
inexorable as one’s self!
--NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (1804–1864)
A friend is:
a push when you’ve stopped
a word when you’re lonely
a guide when you’re searching
a smile when you’re sad
a song when you’re glad. |
A
CRY FOR A LOVING COMMUNITY OF FRIENDSHIP
AND A TURNING FROM THE SINS THAT BREAK UNITY.
Ezra
9:5-15 (Message Bible)
At the evening sacrifice I picked myself up from my utter devastation,
and in my ripped clothes and cape fell to my knees and stretched
out my hands to God, my God. And I prayed:
"My dear God, I'm so totally ashamed, I can't bear to face
you. O my God—our iniquities are piled up so high that we
can't see out; our guilt touches the skies. We've been stuck in
a muck of guilt since the time of our ancestors until right now;
we and our kings and priests, because of our sins, have been turned
over to foreign kings, to killing, to captivity, to looting, and
to public shame—just as you see us now.
"Now for a brief time God, our God, has allowed us, this battered
band, to get a firm foothold in his holy place so that our God may
brighten our eyes and lighten our burdens as we serve out this hard
sentence. We were slaves; yet even as slaves, our God didn't abandon
us. He has put us in the good graces of the kings of Persia and
given us the heart to build The Temple of our God, restore its ruins,
and construct a defensive wall in Judah and Jerusalem.
"And now, our God, after all this what can we say for ourselves?
For we have thrown your commands to the wind, the commands you gave
us through your servants the prophets. They told us, 'The land you're
taking over is a polluted land, polluted with the obscene vulgarities
of the people who live there; they've filled it with their moral
rot from one end to the other. Whatever you do, don't give your
daughters in marriage to their sons nor marry your sons to their
daughters. Don't cultivate their good opinion; don't make over them
and get them to like you so you can make a lot of money and build
up a tidy estate to hand down to your children.'
"And now this, on top of all we've already suffered because
of our evil ways and accumulated guilt, even though you, dear God,
punished us far less than we deserved and even went ahead and gave
us this present escape. Yet here we are, at it again, breaking your
commandments by intermarrying with the people who practice all these
obscenities! Are you angry to the point of wiping us out completely,
without even a few stragglers, with no way out at all? You are the
righteous God of Israel. We are, right now, a small band of escapees.
Look at us, openly standing here, guilty before you. No one can
last long like this." |
