Close Enough to Touch

Monday of Week 30 in Ordinary Time

Ephesian 4:32-5:8

Be kind and forgiving.

Be imitators of God.

Live in love.

It was a day to clean off my desk and surrounding areas.  There is a sacramental relationship between the clarity of my mind and the clutteredness of my desktop!  

While organizing I came across a sticky note where I had written:

The best preparation for loving the world at large,

and loving it wisely,

is to cultivate an intimate friendship 

and affection

towards those who are immediately about us…

         I typed it into my search bar to find out who wrote it. 

                          -Blessed John Henry Newman

Loving the Whole World is too abstract… 

too impossible…

unless it grows out of the real and concrete

particulars of my life.

I have a particular calling

At a particular moment in history

In a particular place

And beginning with particular people

…close enough to touch…

God’s desire for the world

And my small part in that

Begins operating

Particularly