Heart in Action

Justice is what love looks like in public.

It’s to easy not to care. Most morning when we wake up, we merely think about anything, but what the day holds for us and what we have to do. Obligatory tasks. Free time wasters. It is human nature. But we are not excused for our ignorance.

We live in the age of knowledge. We are held accountable for what we knew, or could have known, and ignored.

Life isn’t about what has happened to you. Or what people think of you. Or how you are feeling right now.

Not because these aren’t important, but because these should be secondary to how you are affecting other people. It is a cycle that cannot be broken. Let me explain.

When we step out in love for people, and offer a hand, or a smile, a kind word and a gracious offering, we are changing someone else’s world, for the better. Regardless of their response, that little act of kindness and love is breaking down walls erected around their heart. Be it a pebble or a brick, or eventually the entire wall, it is making a difference.

On thing I have learnt in my limited experience, is that when you love others, you love yourself. I cant explain that logic. I guess it is a law. Like the law of gravity.

If you doubt me, give it a go.

On Sunday, a few friends and I delivered 50 hampers to a housing commission community. We have been in this community for 3 years, fixing up their gardens, giving them clothes, sitting and talking with them. I met one lady with schizophrenia. It was so sad. She sat there, talking normally, then start manifesting. I would ask her what the voices said and she would scream at us to get out. We just sat and talked with her, and prayed for her, and then she wept, said thank you, and that it was her birthday. This happened all in 45 minutes. It didn’t take long to change someones day.

I visited OASIS centre today. A youth refugee in the city, and Streetlevel, an outreach centre with free meals, councelling and showers. That is where I see hands and feet, actively moving, heart in motion. And smiles. The volunteers are grinning. The marginalized and forgotten remembered by a stranger with a heart.

So over this holiday period, who can you smile at? Who needs a small gift of compassion and empathy? Is there an old lady who doesn’t have family? Bake her some cookies. Those of us who are so lucky, we are so few. The majority of the world is lost, forgotten and alone. So lets love someone else, even for 5 minutes. You never know whose world it could change.