Can we do this?

"Love each other.......Heal the sick.......Raise the dead.......Cleanse lepers.......Cast out demons.

That is what loving each other means.

If the Church is doing things like that, then it is being what Jesus told it to be.

If it is not doing things like that - 

no matter how many other good and useful things it may be doing instead - 

Then it is not being what Jesus told it to be.

It is as simple as that."

                                                                                   Frederick Buechner, The Clown in the Belfry

Today, like every single day across the globe, was very hard. Here are only two events: Twelve more people died in another mass shooting and children continued to die of starvation in Yemen.

Not enough loving, healing, raising, cleansing or casting out of the demons that plague us.

I wasn't in Thousand Oaks or Yemen today, but that doesn't get me off the hook. Did I manage to do anything as Jesus commanded?

I tried.

He knows that I tried.

Only His grace can bless and multiply my small efforts, our small efforts to be the Church.

And in these small efforts --

We push back against the tides of hatred, illness, death, separation, and fear that work so hard to convince us there is no other way.

But, there is.

There is always another way of hope and love.

And we, the Church, are commanded to live it so others may live in the first place.

Can I do this?  Can we do this?  Can you do this?