It’s been hot around here, hasn’t it? I see our faithful team of mowers and gardeners coming early in the morning, before it becomes too unbearable, making our grounds look beautiful. What a blessing they are!

It was so hot that we made the decision last week to postpone the Praise Singalong and Picnic on Sunday afternoon – it would have been a health risk for some folks, with the heat radiating off the blacktop and the air quality not so good given the fires out west. We’ll enjoy it another time, we expect, but it was smart to keep us all safe.

When the weather gets like this, I think about when I was in the Arabian Gulf nation of Qatar, when the mid-day temperature was sometimes over 120 and overnight it dipped down to a balmy 92. I think of traveling to the Jordan River in Israel, and down to the Dead Sea, where it felt like one could actually roast in the heat reflected off the sands. 

When I was in those locales, I was able to retreat to places with air-conditioning. I encountered folks, though, who did not have that option. They were acclimated to the heat, to be sure, but even so, to have to work as I saw Indonesian construction workers do in Doha, or as farmhands do tending the irrigated fields outside of Jericho, had to be miserable. I felt for them. I, who was so privileged in so many ways. I, who had the option of an air-conditioned car or bus. 

I mention this because I wonder if we have fallen into the bad habit of talking about what we don’t have – we who have so much – and complaining about that rather than cherishing what we do. When I’m stuck in traffic, I may have unkind thoughts about the driver who is not attending to the ebb and flow of the jammed-up traffic, and who delays me by a couple of seconds. If I cannot get through to a real human being and am stuck in voicemail system Sheol, I curse technology and those who employ it, even though it is often a benefit to me. I’d guess I’m not alone in that.  

And in those moments, I then remember that Jesus had a different approach, although I am sure he was as tired of the heat and the dusty roads, tired of the endless stream of people who wanted something from him, tired of the annoying Pharisees who were always trying to trip him up. 

Jesus regularly encountered people who were poor, having to do the work no one would want to do, having no access to care for their ills or increase their earnings by improving their skills. His starting point was more often than not attending to their physical or emotional needs first before sharing the Good News. Even in the Gospel of John, where Jesus seems like a different kind of Lord than in the other Gospels, he does miracles of healing and feeding and exorcising before he teaches. 

We don’t have the charism of healing in the way Jesus does. But we do have the healing touch of love. A smile, an acknowledgement, a word. In this heat, when we encounter someone who is experiencing homelessness, do we turn our eyes from them or do we smile and nod? In this heat, when our postal delivery person comes to our door seating from the heat of going door-to-door, do we say thank you? If it is possible, do we offer a bottle of water? Do we simply acknowledge the humanity of those who suffer from the heat or from something else? 

Even the smallest gesture of love can be a ministry of presence to those who more often than not are ignored or treated with disdain or contempt. What would it feel like to set ourselves the challenge of doing one small gesture like this each week? Maybe we wouldn’t feel the heat quite the same way.

Be blessed and be a blessing-

Mary+