Someone once told me

that our words should guide our actions. That what you say should really point to what you’re going to do. It’s easy to say you’re going to do something and never get around to it. Last week I learned just how important it is to do what you say you’re going to do.

Out at Tent City last fall, a young homeless man called "Ox" told me that he was a lifelong United Methodist – which church he belonged to – who his youth pastor was. Turns out, I know his youth pastor and thought that it’d be a good idea to call and let him know where one of his youth had landed. A couple of days later I followed through and called. Peter reflected about Ox’s troubled life and how he had ended up on the streets. The pastor thanked me for letting him know and said that he would go to Tent City to look for him. He did. Ox reconnected with him and others in the church – helping other homeless folk through Room in the Inn, and attending church regularly. When he didn’t show up that Sunday morning, people noticed. Later that day the pastor got a call from his brother saying that Ox had died.

Charles Dickens wrote in Oliver Twist: “There is no remorse so deep as that which is unavailing: to be spared its tortures, let us remember this in time.”

Following through on kind intentions can prevent unavailing remorse…I’m so thankful that procrastination did not rule the day I was to call Peter. I’m so thankful that a day’s interruptions did not block the path to Tent City for Peter. I’m so thankful that Grace paved a way between Ox and his faith community – that Mercy made the past surmountable and that the Love that never lets us go was palpable in Ox’s last days.

My friend Jerry said to me last night, “I know I’m not in control. It’s just a ride.” In the whole scheme of things – in the big picture of life, maybe we don’t have control. But over that which is within my reach, this is my prayer:

A Franciscan Benediction

May God bless us with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that we may live deep within our hearts.

May God bless us with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that we may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless us with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that we may reach out our hands to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done.