Empty Bed, Full Heart- A Single Mother's Journey

 Some days, it feels like the world is imploding.  Yet, here we sit, in our whitewashed tombs, thinking only of what the world outside is going to see and not concerned at all that death lies within. This morning, as I read through the Gospel of Matthew (Mat 23:27-32), these hard words struck me as particularly relevant to today's social and political climate: "You are like whitewashed tombs.... on the outside, you appear righteous, but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing ." Isn't that what Facebook is for? Grandstanding? Being right? Tearing down other human beings in an effort to gain superiority, while our brothers and sisters around us are suffering, hurting, and dying? Beautiful pictures and high ideals sweep the page while the comments ravage any contradiction in belief; and the real world outside the confines of that pretty page continues to break and despair.  "You say, 'If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have jo...

Amidst the political and social turmoil that assails us nearly everywhere we look, a common theme I often hear echoed is the desire for others to be kind and compassionate. Kind. Compassionate. Such simple words. Let's face it; the mere sound of those words elicits a flood of warm and sometimes deeply emotional sensations and longings. Not only that, but just sharing those words gives us (or at least me and I would suspect many others) the sense that we are good people for wanting those things; that somehow, we are morally just in calling for compassion and kindness; that others are cruel for not espousing such simple ideals. I've reflected sometimes on the ideas of kindness and compassion. Being human, I've had many moments where I've needed and been shown compassion and kindness. But here's the kicker - in none of those instances was compassion or kindness a simple or easy thing. Nor did it come about by words spoken to me in a vacuum. While cruel words can ...