25So Jesus told them: Foreign kings order their people around, and powerful rulers call themselves everyone's friends. 26But don't be like them. The most important one of you should be like the least important, and your leader should be like a servant. 27Who do people think is the greatest, a person who is served or one who serves? Isn't it the one who is served? But I have been with you as a servant.
*Gospel of Luke 22.25-27 (CEV, Christian Scripture)
I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.
*Albert Schweitzer
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A woman was religiously devout and filled with love for God. Each morning she would attend morning Mass at the church. On her way children would call out to her happily and beggars would beg for money or food. So immersed was she in her devotions, she did not stop to pay attention either to the gleeful calls of children or the pleadings of beggars.
One day the woman walked her customary route and arrived at the church just in time for the Worship Service. She pushed the door, to open it. It did not open. She pushed it harder. The door did not open. The door was locked.
Distressed that she would miss Mass for the first time in many years, and not knowing what to do, she looked up to pray. Right before her face, she saw a note. The note directed, “Turn around. I’m out there!”
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Principally, I serve as a Chaplain for I love people, I want to help them, and I know that they will bless me, too. Serving is not about me. Serving is about us. If I am to meet Christ, I will most often meet Christ in the other, in that time of sharing and connection heart-with-heart. Giving and receiving are really one act, one dance of Grace. How sad to work mainly for money to sustain this quickly disappearing life - which means, paying for things that often are nonessentials. How inhuman to give one's soul for money to buy the things that end up distracting from what is really important and the way to joy. The most joyful moments of my life have been when I have forgotten myself in serving. The most sad moments of my life have been moments I was thinking only of myself. I relax and invite the Silence often, and alone, but not to curl up in an egoic shell for protection from the outside. I enter the inner Sanctuary, partly, to come out and take that Grace into serving others, which is the same as saying into loving others.
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* * * CLOSING BLESSING * * *
Grace and Peace to All
The Sacred in Me bows to the Sacred in You
*Move your cursor over photos to see photographer and name of photo.
*Lotus of the Heart is a Work of Arem Nahariim-Samadhi. Bless You Each & All!
