Words, Bones, Sticks and Stones

 

Image credit:
https://crossfitodyssey.com/sunday-story-sticks-and-stones/

When I was a little boy and people used unkind words I was told to retort, 

"Sticks and stones can break my bones,
  But words can never harm me."

At the time I believed this, and it helped me get past a few difficult situations as a young child, but I now know this not to be true. Words can and do harm; they have the power to harm or to heal, to instruct or to mislead. They can convey whether we are arrogant, officious, paternalistic and patronising, or genuinely compassionate, empathetic and caring. The words we use betray our unconscious attitudes and unchallenged stereotypes, or help us serve the poor with love, respect, justice and joy. 

For more on this, please have another look at our 8 minute training video "SSVP Mission, Respect and Stereotypes". 

The Light Which God Intends to Kindle

 

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Spiritual Reading - selected by Deacon Steve

“Humanity, made in God’s image, is placed in the paradise of the world, a world which is still paradise, but which we have lost, by becoming alienated from ourselves and from the Creator.

In this world from which we are alienated, humanity can come to find ourselves and recover our right relation to the world, and to God, by the work which God has given us to do. Our worship, our liturgy, should rightly be not only worship but a theology of life, a theology of work, planting in us the seeds of understanding and wisdom which will flower in our work. But this means that our work must be purified of titanism, of self-will, of aspirations to self-assertion and power. And this means that it must be delivered from obsession with what we are not, with our past and future, what we have ceased to be and have not yet become and is based on what we are in our present reality. For only in the present can we come in full contact with the truth willed for us and in us by God. Thus, creation will become once again a lampstand, and humanity the lamp will be placed on it in order to be lit with the light of truth. For this is the light which God really intends to kindle in us. When we are in communion with other people and with the cosmos by our will, the light of truth is kindled in us.

The Book of Proverbs says: ‘The light of God is the human spirit, penetrating to the depths of our being.’ (Proverbs 20:27)”

from Merton, Thomas, “Seasons of Celebration” p. 132 – 133, Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, 2009

Titanism: 
A spirit of revolt or defiance, like that of the Titans, against established order, social conventions, etc.

 

Questions for reflection:

As Vincentians, what is our "work" that needs to be purified?

Am I stuck, trying to live according to an identity locked into my past, who I used to be?

Am I pretending to be someone I would like to be in the future?

… or am I OK with letting people see me for who I am right now, warts and all, not perfect, but beloved by God?

Do I really believe that God loves me now, as I am?

Do I consciously remind myself that God deeply loves each of the families we serve, as they are?

What people remember - and forget