The Gift of each other
A library of People
On Wednesday night at the Global Meeting for Worship, a friend shared the following poem,
Only For a Short While
Oh, only for so short a while you
have loaned us to each other,
because we take form in your act of drawing us,
and we take life in your painting us,
and we breathe in your singing us.
But only for so short a while
have you loaned us to each other.
Because even a drawing cut in obsidian fades,
and the green feathers, the crown feathers,
of the Quetzal bird lose their color,
and even the sounds of the waterfall
die out in the dry season.
So, we too, because only for a short while
have you loaned us to each other.
- Aztec Indian Prayer
It was the words ‘loaned us to each other’ that stood out as if to remind me that we are gifts to each other. How might the image that we are a gift for a time to each other change how we interact?
Each person who came our way we would view as a gift despite it not always being obvious. Perhaps we would persevere until we see the gift that they are. Maybe the gift that they are is only revealed in the passage of time.
How might it change how some of us see ourselves. If we were to see ourselves as a gift even if we can’t behold it, it may help us relax more in the world and just be who we are without seeking approval or any other.
The next evening I was with my Christian Life Community (CLC). After some years of using Luke’s gospel as a basis for our contemplation, we had reached the end. The last two verses inform us that Jesus blessed his disciples and was taken up to heaven. He too was on loan. As a group, we want to know what material we will use next but as with the disciples we need to only wait and see what emerges. No doubt we will receive another gift loaned to us perhaps in a person or in materials to use.
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