This will be the final devotion of the year. It is a good ending to a new beginning.
Tutu...makes theological claims of how the community forms the individual.
"We must not try to be too clever. We do not need to be too clever. We must just be receptive, open, appreciative, to smell the fragrance of the flowers, to feel the cold splash of the rain, to catch the familiar odor of damp soil, to see the ragged mother dandling her malnourished baby in rags. And maybe to be moved to cry, to pray, to be silent, and to let the Spirit inside us pray with groanings that cannot be put into words. To marvel at the fact that poor, hungry people can laugh, can love, can be caring, can share, can nurture, can embrace, can cry, can whimper, can crawl over and die - that these tattered rags of humanity are Jesus Christ: 'Inasmuch as you did it to the least of these my sisters and brothers.' They are God's stand-ins, created in his image. They are precious, they have their names engraved on God's palms, the hairs of their heads are numbered, and God knows them, these nonentities, these anonymous ones who are killed and nobody seems to care."
Connection: Maybe the only thing we need is to remember this piece as we walk into a New year as a beloved people and consider the many opportunities we have to share life with the rest of God's beloved - our sisters and brothers...all of them.
Come, Lord God and stir up our lives with this love that will not end. It is by your power that we begin to reach over the divisions that we let divide us. When we are ready to make war of any kind, remind us of your loving image that is made known to us through the community of your saints.
Amen.
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