Clothesline - 234 "A new beginning"

Winter for Floridians brings nice, cool, occasionally COLD weather.  We get to wear those warm clothes that hardly ever leave the closet, and we go to bed with the windows open.  It’s wonderful!  But when we go outside, the grass is dormant, some plants aren’t as pretty, and only a few little birds find their way to the birdbath.  While other parts of the country are dealing with awful rains, terrible snowstorms, and horrific wildfires, I’ll take Florida winters every day!

This winter in particular, we’ve been watching pictures of people in Los Angeles returning to a pile of ruins and ashes that was once their home.  Yesterday a man found his dog that had been missing for a week, and he was so elated, he couldn’t contain himself.  If you watch enough of those pictures, you will surely ask yourself: what would I take with me if I had to leave my home quickly?  Most people say picture albums and childhood memories. I just saw a photo of a swimming pool with a woman’s priceless dishes and bowls piled high in her pool!  I guess she did that before she left.

But my question is:  how does one rebuild after such devastation?   How do you start all over when you’ve left everything behind?  I flashed to last Sunday’s Gospel:  Jesus’ baptism.  Jesus left his home and his family behind at thirty years old, not knowing when he would see them again, and going out into a world that might not receive his message.

Granted he left on his own and he didn’t leave a Los Angeles mansion behind, but what he left, was ALL that he had…every earthly possession.  Yes, he was God, but his humanness must have felt some pain.  And why did he leave?  Because He was doing His Father’s will.  His mission in life was to bring the world back to His Father.  Could we do such a thing?

Well, we have that choice almost every day. Our smile may be the one thing that shows that annoying grocery bagger that he’s doing a good job.  A thank-you to the man who picks up the trash might be just what he needs to hear to believe he has a purpose.  It’s like a daily baptism into a new day, yet another opportunity to share what’s really important in life.

I wouldn’t want to lose all my earthly possessions.  But if that ever happened, I would hope that a person to share the love of Jesus would cross my path.  Then…it would be like Baptism…a new beginning into a new life.