After my workout the other day, I found myself walking to the beat of the Hip Hop music rocking from the Zumba class on my way out of the YMCA. Passing the classroom, I stopped short when I noticed a young woman dancing near the doorway. Swooping up and down and all around, her arms spread wide like a great pelican, she danced a choreography all her own, while the other students followed the teacher’s steps. Her smile was wide, with speckles of joy sparkling around her like stardust. I soon recognized her as one of the women with Down Syndrome who often helps sweep the parking lot in the early morning hours, always greeting and waving to me with her usual enthusiasm “hi there!”. This beautiful earth sister is my kindred spirit. How we both love to dance!
I often see her during my workouts, always with a smile, and her usual, hearty, joyful greeting. She makes me think of how we’re all uniquely formed in our mother’s womb, each with a gift to share with the world.
I remember hearing the inspirational, limbless, Nick Vujicic speaking at a local high school. That evening he asked a young man with Down Syndrome to stand, a man he said, who had a gift. “What gift do you have that you can share?”, Nick asked. The young man stood proudly and answered, “I have the gift of loving everybody and never hurting anybody”.
I have a friend who has a particularly hard time with people who are not nice. Unfortunately, in his current job, he works day to day with many not-nice people – gossipers, yellers, and snippy, down right rude, miserable folks. Half the stress of his job is the energy it takes to protect his sensitive soul from these work place trolls. He often fantasizes of a world where everyone is nice, offering each other the gift of love, and never hurting anyone.
What he’s fantasizing about is a world infused with God, for God is love.
He’s searching for a kingdom of love, on earth as it is in heaven.
Jesus told us about this kingdom, that we don’t have to look for it, or wait for it, for that “kingdom of God is within you”.
Roman Catholic Priest and author, Henry Nouwen, abandoned a distinguished academic career to work at the L’Arche Daybreak Community in Toronto, a home for people with mental disabilities. Working at L’Arche and becoming friends with the mentally disabled young people in the community changed his life in ways he’d never imagined. During a time at L’Arche when he faced a “despair so great, he felt even God abandoned him..where all had become darkness”, after losing a dear friend, it was one young man among his many mentally disabled friends that restored him to wholeness.
Nouwen said this person had “been able to touch me in a way I had never been touched before. Our friendship encouraged me to allow myself to be loved and cared for with greater trust and confidence. It was a totally new experience for me, and it brought immense joy and peace. It seemed as if a door of my interior life had been opened, a door that had remained locked during my youth and most of my adult life.”
Nouwen’s story brings to mind St. Paul’s words about love. “It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
Nouwen’s mentally disabled friend shared the greatest gift of all– love. A gift he both embodied and offered freely.
For a loving world, we need to be like little Christs. Yet as Jesus said, unless we change and “become as little children we will in no way enter into this Kingdom of Heaven”, this kingdom of divine love.
In the gospels in 1John we read, “let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God”.
And “anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love”.
Divine love comes from those dancing to a different beat, from outcasts, the simple and the humble, and from those who seek God like little children. Sprouting across the world, from a peasant, a carpenter, not worshipped by kings, hated by the religious, divine love flourished across centuries.
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Posting for #SmallWonders this week and others!
Love this! At the end of the day, the world will know we are children of God by our love for one another. It’s not about how well we preach or how eloquent our words are…it’s about our love. Thank you for the reminder to always live in love. 🙂
Thank you Alyssa for visiting! We always need to remember that the world will know us by our love for one another..it’s that love that spread throughout the centuries!
Great word – we are commanded to love… but we all know it’s not easy at times! I love this young man’s words “I have the gift of loving everybody and never hurting anybody”. Wow!
Thanks so much Clare, love having you visit! Doesn’t that young man share the greatest wisdom of all!
Precious are the little ones! I count Down Syndrome ones, the elderly with dementia, and so many more as some of those precious ones. I hope to love them as Christ did and does. I have a smile on my face thinking of a few that I love today.
Caring through Christ, ~ linda
Precious, Linda! Thank you for visiting and for your loving heart!
and so it goes – what would Jesus do? that’s what we should do 😀
Yes, love that. How simple! Thanks Andi!
Love this post, all the books by Henri Nouwen, and the trusting unconditional love of individuals with special needs…which is really all of us…all is grace ❤️
Hi Beth, I love how you point out we are all individuals with special needs! Yes! I’ve also enjoyed all of Henri Nouwen’s writing, in fact, it’s time to read some again! So much appreciate your visit!
This is all so true and I continue to pray that I will open myself to love so I will have more love to live. Thanks for linking with #SmallWonder.
Hi Kelly, thank you for visiting! We all need to keep being open to love more fully, a moment to moment practice of abiding in God’s love!
Wow. You are so right that divine love can show up anywhere and we don’t need to close ourselves off from those who are different. They are sometimes the very ones who exhibit love the most. Beautiful post.
Thank you Lisa for your lovely, heartfelt comment! God’s love shines in places we might not expect to look! May the eyes of our hearts continue to open! Love having you visit!
The priest’s story is filled with the beauty of the profound comfort and love we feel when we sense someone truly sees us for who we really are. And still expresses love and full acceptance…..no matter our flaws. As a daughter of a mother with Asperger’s, I understand well the beauty and precious gift of being seen for who I am . Thank you for these touching stories Kathy.
I love you visiting here today, reading the stories of the heart of God’s loving nature who loves us just as we are.