So, here is the thing. Most of us who get into the business I’m in do it because we want to help people. You might say that we want to feed people. Sometimes we literally want to feed people. The not so secret dirty little secret is that we think we might get something out of it. I’m not talking about money, although we like money. I’m talking about being fed, but not literally being fed. Spiritual food, soul food, ethical food, whatever you want to call it food, that’s what we are looking for.
And it is all around us, everyday, but sometimes it is hard to see. Or sometimes we see other people getting fed and we don’t have the same experience. That can bum a person out. For whatever reason, the spiritual famine that inhabits our whole culture pervades even into those places that one would imagine to be spiritually rich. It touches people one would imagine to be spiritually nourished.
But sometimes they are not. Sometimes they seem to have been abandoned even as they protest that possibility. They put up signs that say “this place I am in is dangerous but it is not for you to be hurt by.” Still, the cloud that chokes them wafts our way and it stinks. It reeks to heaven and it makes me want to yell, “you asshole, why have you forsaken her?” And I will grab the Big Chief and drag him down if I can.
And I will not let go. I will not let go until he blesses me and he blesses the one the cloud has already consumed. I will not let go until he blesses the others who have been consumed and the ones over who the cloud now lingers. I will not let go. Nor do I have to, even though we are already blessed. Even though I don’t understand how this is possible, I know that it is. I know I can still wrestle and still be blessed because they are blessed. The ones who did not know peace then know peace now.