This week has been quite a week...we had our first event with a well known magazine, I rode on the train for the first time in years, I invited my husband back into our bedroom and I found out that my cousin is in prison...
While all of it seemed unrelated, there seems to be consistent reality that I have been confronted with...
We're unkind to those who love us and we're unkind to ourselves. We're unkind to strangers and perhaps give the best of who we are to fleeting aquitances...why?
At this swish event, I was sick- but sometimes you need to bite the bullet and paste on a smile - the chief editor was so kind to me...she didn't need to be...afterwards I took the train home. A man and his family boarded the train. They were begging for money. Now, our city is teeming with people whose sole purpose is to scam you, but they were different. Carrying a real deal newspaper article, they were about to lose their home...nobody even looked their way...to busy ignoring the quiet dignity of the man, doing his best to save his house. I scooped the little change I had and gave it him...next a young man stood at the train door, while the train was preparing to leave the station. An old woman carrying 4 shopping bags did her best to get to the door and the young man tried to keep it open but he wasn't strong enough. Nobody stirred...nobody cared. She would have to wait another 30 minutes for the next train and by that time, the city would be dark and dangerous. I stood up and kept it open with him, while the men around me stared into nothingness...why is it so hard for us to be kind? Has it really gotten so bad, that we refuse to do anything for nothing?...
My cousin is in Pollsmoor prison...his father once was in prison for murder. My aunt tried her best by him...we all did. Those of us with money and connections offered rehab and job opportunities...none of it took. So now his in prison for stealing a card swipe machine...he sleeps amongst rapists and murderers...I remember when he was younger. He was such a beautiful boy...meditterean colouring with gorgeous curls. There was such promise and for a moment, we thought that he would be able to get over his dad and live an amazing life. But he chose differently. He chose drugs and running with drug dealers and thieves. My mom told me today, that he called my aunt from prison...I don't want to know what he had to do, to use someones smuggled in cellphone...he begged her for bail money...she refused. After a lifetime of rescuing him from himself, she finally had enough. His an adult man now and there is nothing more that she can do... So now my aunt, had to tell her only child that she won't bail him out and she left him there. No mom should ever have to make that kind of choice...
Why has he been so unkind to himself? Didn't he believe that he was worth so much more, than the short lived thrills of drugs and scoring. If he didn't care about himself...what his mom, couldn't he pulled it together for her?
And now what kind of life will he have once he leaves prison...prison changes a man. Will I want him around my child...will he be worse than when he went in? I can't see how he could not be...all I want is to ask him why??
I thought this week, that majority of people I saw on the train and definitely my family would consider themselves Christians. Now I will be the first to say, that I am christian because I am in sore need of a redeemer - but part of our Christian journey is to rolemodel christ to others...how we can divorce our beliefs from our daily actions so easily or have we come so used to Sunday Christians...
We need to begin to love ourselves enough and be drenched in the love of Christ again. We will find that the love of God will overflow and we will in turn can not help but be kind to not ourselves but to those around us.
My husband once asked me, why does he need to give to the poor. If he was poor nobody would give to him...I told him this: An act of kindness is not a reflection of how deserving the person is, that you are giving to. Its a reflection of who you are in Christ".
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