It’s easy out on the streets, especially in the colder
months, to get caught up in the day-to-day struggle just to survive. But every so often, even in the waning
months of a Maine winter, something different and more profound breaks through.
A couple weeks ago, I was talking with a Passamaquoddy woman
outside the day shelter, and she said, “you know, Pastor, it’s faith that leads
to hope, and it’s hope that leads to love.” I’ve thought a lot about all three of those words, but never
as one engendering the other. But
as I thought about it, I realized that she’d perfectly encapsulated a road map
for the application of the two commandments that Christ emphasized -- the love
of God and the love of neighbor.
Faith in something larger (God) leads to hope for a better world, and
this is expressed in the day-to-day by the love of others. But without faith in something larger,
it’s almost impossible to find the love of others that is at the root of
transformation.
Some days it’s all about socks and coats and boots and hand
warmers. Other days, you get a
deep lesson in theology that could only have been found in the stripped-down
margins at the edges of society.