Little Things, Great Love
31 March 2020
It’s the evening before the online shop restocks, and I’m sitting in my quiet living room, amidst vegetable seeds for sowing, tea and homemade chocolate cake delivered by a friend yesterday, and unfired mugs I attached handles to last week.
“Plush.” That’s how my friend, Katie Roo, described my shelter-in status. She’s a medical worker in COVID19-hotspot Chicago, supporting folks trying to survive both a global pandemic and an epidemic characterized by poverty, drug abuse, and homelessness. Katie personifies truth-telling without judgment, which is why I didn’t take her comment as a damning accusation. In the safety of our friendship, I was able to lay down some of the angst of the past weeks. What can I do to help? Why do I have the privilege of a home to shelter in? a well-stocked pantry to cook with? a network of loved ones who check in on me every day? What is my social responsibility as a Christian to people affected by the pandemic?
Many of those questions are guilt-based and thus unfruitful to dwell on. But I wonder if it my social responsibility can be informed by the Christian responsibility to hope. Jesus — man of sorrows, well-acquainted with grief, servant of his people and healer of their infirmities — has died. Jesus has risen. Jesus will come again. With him comes the promise of the day death dies, the hope of the city in which there is neither crying nor mourning nor pain. This is a hope that demands practicing.
So I will plant a garden in stubborn hope that the times for tending, harvesting, and sharing its colorful bounty with neighbors will come. I will bake and cook and drive the food over to my dear friends who are loving their children through a scary and uncertain time. I will memorize Scriptures that liken God to a fortress tower and ever-present help in times of trouble. I will throw pottery, continuing to nurture beauty into being, even though I don’t know when I’ll have access to a kiln again. I will pray evening prayer with friends and practice lament and ask the Lord to expand my capacity to care for the broken things of this world. I will cull stories of thoughtful, creative service enacted by neighbors and friends to embolden my own soul to hope.
I will, with God’s help, practice hope by doing little things with great love.
Friday’s work of imitating geometric designs mastered by Islamic artisans of old.
Saturday’s work of throwing the forms for stackable tumblers.
Today’s work of carving. (1/2)
Today’s work of carving. (2/2)
