Planting Hope

“I get drawn in. I see and I even feel. Then fear steps in to block the next step. I worry about getting sucked in to a situation that will demand too much of me.”  So said Sarah, commenting on When Helping Hurts or Haunts 

“Name the game and then go on to do what is needed.”  So said Bobbie, commenting on Broken Mirror Neurons 

“We cannot "help" or "change" folks. All we can do is be there as friend. We don't "feel good" when we realize that we are not "accomplishing anything," and that tends to slow us down. If we change our perspective, our goals, and function within "their expectations," set our sights on their level, then maybe we can be fed enough to keep at it. And maybe that can be good for them, too.”  So said Cousin Pat commenting on We Are Fam-ily  .

Sarah nailed my reluctance in living out the model of the Good Samaritan, despite my writing about it in this blog lately.  Pat and Bobbie offered worthy strategies for getting past it.  

Be there as friend.  Do what is needed.  Yesterday on our way home from Detroit we stopped to visit Bill and Billie Hickey in their new home in Brightmoor.  New home in Brightmoor…I’m stopped at my keyboard by the juxtaposition of new home and Brightmoor.  If you search for images of Brightmoor Detroit, you’ll get things like this:

But you’ll also get things like this; 

because the spaces between the notes are music, too.

Bill had commented on Notice!   “Sometimes I act on faith...and feel lousy, guilty, scared, uncertain. I wish your recent reflections would allow a little more room for those feelings.”  And so when Kathy and I left our hotel with our son Chris to return to our new home in Traverse City, our first stop was Brightmoor, where Bill and his wife Billie act on faith every day.  They were taking off their shoes, caked with dirt from “Gloryland” , the garden that they had helped establish at Gesu, the parish we shared with Bill for decades.  Bill piled us in their Honda hybrid and drove us “around the block” showing us the work that was being done between the houses.  Here’s an article on one: Brightmoor: Neighbors Sow Change in Detroit.  

Get drawn in.  Do what is needed.  Be there as friend.  Bill and Billie join Riet and Mark Schumack there.  I was blessed to know Mark at UDM, and had admired his quiet example of humanity in the footsteps on Jesus; yeah, that same Jesus who told us who our neighbor was by introducing us to the Good Samaritan.

 FreeLemonadeStand by John J. Daniels is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.