As I wrote in my monthly newsletter this week, I’ve been feeling a little volatile these last ten days. In the wake of the election and the subsequent unrest in America, I’ve found myself fluctuating wildly, one moment declaring I will become a vocal activist in support of marginalized people, the next moment yearning for my coziest socks, my grandmother’s afgan, and a stack of romance novels.
The truth is, I don’t really know what to do, and I suspect I’m not alone in that. The feelings of anger, fear, isolation, and misunderstanding are very real and very powerful among Americans across all political, social, and racial spectrums right now. The problems our country is facing feel too big — certainly much too big for any one person.
I tend to get a little myopic during times of great stress. I turn inward. I think a lot about myself – how I’ve been wronged, how I feel. That’s why I like the message in this verse from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. It simplifies the issue for me; it redirects my attention away from myself and brings everything that feels big and burdensome and overwhelming down to scale.
My foremost job, Paul reminds me, is simply to help others live well — and that’s a practice I can apply to the people living under my own roof, to my neighbor next door, to my co-worker in the next cubicle, to the homeless man on the corner.
So that’s what I will be doing today and tomorrow and the next day after that: I’ll be doing my best to help others live well.
When we put it like that, it doesn’t sound so difficult, does it?
Peace for your weekend, friends…
