In reflecting on today’s Scriptures the quote from the 1994 Movie The Shawshank Redemption came to mind, “Get busy living or get busy dying.”
St. Paul admonishes the people who are “busy” criticizing or judging others, when they should be “busy” performing good works, whatever they might be, with as much joy and goodwill as possible. Because one’s joy will contribute to the overall enjoyment of others.
I heard a story this week about Mike the Mailman. Mike the Mailman’s philosophy was that everyone should leave his Post Office line better than when they came in. Imagine that!
Mike the Mailman had as his motto, “If you cannot say something nice about someone, you are just not looking hard enough.” Whoa!
In life we can get all caught up with what is wrong and negative.
- My health is bad, it is getting worse.
- The end of the world must be coming now – look at the election.
Rather, than wait for one’s education to end, or the kids to grow up, or the career to be fulfilled, or to find the perfect mate for us, or for our child to grow up to be President… Maybe we need seize upon the small practices like Mike the Mailman that make a big difference. As a matter of fact one person shared that she would got to the Post Office to buy stamps, even when she did not need them, just to share in the energy of Mike the Mailman’s feel good personality.
You and I are in Church this morning for any number of reasons, but hopefully one of them is that God will break into our world and make things right. But maybe for this to really happen, WE have to ALLOW God to break into us.
To break into our studies, labors, conversations, relationships, attitudes, biases, prejudices, and most especially our ability to be of service.
Allowing God’s Spirit to break into us, over us, and through us might just allow God to enter our world moment by moment, rather then in one big moment sometime in the future.
One theologian has written:
“Do all the good you can; by all the means you can; in all the ways you can; in all the places you can; at all the times you can; to all the people you can; as long as ever you can.”
This might well be a very good use of our time as we wait for whatever it is that we wait for.
Oh by the way, today is World Kindness Day. Be kind today, for sure, but be kinder and kinder tomorrow and every day thereafter.
And we may be surprised to discover that it was all the small acts of kindness and goodness, of caring and sharing we did along the way of life, that has made all the difference.