the least of these

We live in a fast, fast world. It's all at our fingertips, and the definition of "impossible" only shrinks - especially in America, with a standard of living so unbelievably high, and no social or religious caste system holding any of us irreversibly in check. There is truly very, very little that any of us literally couldn't do (within the realm of human possibility), if we wanted to badly enough.

Change your mind about what you want to make for dinner tonight? The grocery store is just down the street - they have everything, and you can probably afford at least a couple extra items. Want to learn to play basketball or saxophone, sew a dress, fix a car, build a house? Stardom isn't guaranteed, but if you apply yourself you can learn.
Feel like zipping over to Italy for awhile? It'll cost you some, but it can most certainly be done, and it'll only take a few hours to get there. Want to be a lawyer someday, or a nurse, or a pastor, or a marine biologist? You can get there. The countryside is littered with colleges - take your pick. Curious about the weather, the price of gold, current events in Bangladesh, migratory habits of Mallard ducks, proper violin vibrato technique, Brittney Spears' latest meltdown, this week's sale at Hobby Lobby, or the outcome of your cousin's soccer game? You can find out anything on the web (the only trouble is determining how much of it is true).

So take all that phenomenal potential, wad it up, throw it away, and imagine you can't even speak. Not because you aren't smart enough, but because your body won't cooperate. Imagine peoples' blind assumptions that, since the sounds coming from your mouth don't sound like words, you must not really understand words - must require baby talk. Imagine people continually talking about you instead of to you. Imagine all the intelligence stored up in your mind, frustrated on its way to expression because the brain signals that tried to tell your fingers to move over just a bit, sent your whole arm flying into the air. Imagine everyone you know racing on ahead, never looking back to see if you can keep up ... because you can't.

This world moves too fast for some of us. And, I don't know, what do you think? When you blaze into the homestretch alone and plow through that glorious white tape, will God look down at His stopwatch and go, "Fwooh! You are fast. I love you!"

Or might He look past you, away down the track, to the valiant stragglers still coming in hours later, and to the little clusters of people that stayed back with each one, to cheer them and love them all the way to the end?

I'm not writing to my own praise, because I fail at least as often as anyone else out there. There are so many pains and struggles I don't understand, so many needs I neglect out of blindness or fear. And I'm not writing to anyone in particular - just to the world - because the longer I live in it, I see so many people who just. Don't. Think. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming that the things they don't do to help the weak ones in their midst, just somehow never occur to them. It's hard to understand what you've never experienced, I know, and everyone's got their own lives to worry about.

But as for you - whoever you are - you live inside the only mind you'll ever be able to change - so give it some thought. Look around. Clear a path, lend a hand, carry something, send word ahead, make provisions, call back the impatient runners-ahead, make preparations, ask what would be helpful, and if all else fails, you may just have to wait cheerfully to carry on with your activities until everyone is ready. Every. One.

And if you are already a precious advocate for someone who can't fend for themselves - God bless you - and keep on keeping on.

And the King will answer and say to them, 

'Assuredly, I say to you, 

inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, 

you did it to Me.' 

(Matthew 25:40)