Just Walking Home

While I was watching a video about creating art, the above quote flashed before my eyes. It caught me so off guard I found I was saying "We're all just walking each other home" over and over. I stopped the video and went back to where it first flashed on the screen.

In my search to find out more about this Ram Dass guy, I found much about new-age practices. I do not agree with those practices. However, God definitely had a message for me in those seven words.

I have troubles. You have troubles. I have joys. You have joys. We praise God in the good and, as difficult as it is, the bad times. But, God also gives us others to help us walk through those times. So, in a sense, we're all just walking each other home (Heaven) as we walk with others in their journeys. Face to face, phone calls, texts, emails, you name it. God places people in our lives, whether a short time period or long, to help us walk through life's junk and joys.

I have many friends walking a journey of pain and trials. I won't minimize their pain, physical and/or emotional. It's real. It's raw. But, when they reach out to another person it lightens the load for an amount of time.

To give you real example, a friend and I were talking. Her life isn't what she expected or wanted. But, that's life. What started out as a gripe, read venting, session for both of us over the phone ended with us talking about our faith and the prayer of St. Francis. (the prayer is below the video)

Before we hung up I told her, "I love it when we start the conversation complaining and end talking about the prayer of St Francis." Isn't that how life should be? A person to walk beside you in good and bad. And, encourage your faith in Christ when all is said and done? I believe God was pleased.

The journey may be long or short. The outcome may not be what we want or had planned. But, we are all richer for being there for one another.

Here is the video that started my thought...

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.

O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.