St. James Episcopal Church in Eureka Springs
Photo credit: Richard Quick
Our small village has experienced two heart-breaking events in the last couple of days. An historic church, well-known for reaching out to those in need, had a major fire in the wee hours of the morning. The edifice housed the only pipe organ in our town, beautiful stained glass windows, and a kitchen which has fed the hungry while building community through a program called “Sunday Suppers”. The night before, there was another fire just outside of town in which three members of a family perished. We feel as though the fabric of our town has been rent. Many times today I’ve stopped to consider the fine line between compassion and a gruesome imagining of events leading to these situations. In both of these tragedies, I’ve been contemplating how to care for those in need, how to love actively, and ways to care about their plight without exacerbating the fear and grief many are feeling. Sympathy, empathy, and compassion: I plan on making these caring actions the focus of my study in days to come. I do know that love lifts us above the feelings of hopelessness which a simple rehashing of events with others brings to us. I shall return to love every time I’m tempted to feel fear. Namaste.
“Only the sane can look on stark insanity and raving madness with pity and compassion, but not with fear. For only if they share in it does it seem fearful, and you do share in it until you look upon your brother with perfect faith and love and tenderness. Before complete forgiveness you still stand unforgiving. You are afraid of God because you fear your brother. Those you do not forgive you fear. And no one reaches love with fear beside him.”
A Course in Miracles T-19.IV-D.11:2-7
“The tender word and Christian encouragement of an invalid, pitiful patience with his fears and the removal of them, are better than hecatombs of gushing theories, stereotyped borrowed speeches, and the doling of arguments, which are but so many parodies on legitimate Christian Science, aflame with divine Love.”
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 367:3-9
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