During the month of April I am participating in the A to Z Blogging Challenge. You can find out more about that here:
My theme this year is Keep Moving Forward
Xenial
Definition: Friendly relationship between host and guest
“A xenial community”
My grandmother was a devout Catholic. She took her grandchildren to church every Sunday morning and bad mouthed our parents during the car ride to Mass. After the Mass she spoke kinder of them, often telling stories of when our parents were kids. She would also try to teach us something. Some of those lessons didn’t stick but many of them did.
One thing she often spoke of was being prepared for Jesus. She said we should always have a clean and comfortable room in our house to offer him if he knocked on our door and we should always keep ingredients on hand to prepare a special meal.
She also said we should practice being kind to any guest in our home, just in case.
Those lessons are most likely the reason I was able to deal with, Sophie. She was the 80-year-old homeless woman my husband brought home one night, because he didn’t know what else to do. It wasn’t always easy to have her in our house for nearly three –years. I often heard my grandmother’s voice saying, “Be kind to everyone who enters your home. You have no idea who sent them.”
I honestly try to take those lessons out into my neighborhood and my community. Like living with Sophie it isn’t always easy. In fact sometimes it’s downright painful and then I hear her voice again, “Those that are hardest to love; need our love the most.”
These lessons were so hard to live with this week as my car was scraped while parked in a lot and an impatient lunatic was mad because he was behind me in a left turning lane and he wanted to go straight. Just as I started to turn left he passed me (speeding) on the left and then proceeded to cross two lanes to go straight nearly missing oncoming traffic. I wanted to chase him, to scream at him, to hurt him for terrifying me but I had my three granddaughters in the car. I simply said we will pray for him, that he gets to where he needs to go safely.
I went on to tell them how we should always be kind and keep moving forward, even when it is difficult, Keep Moving Forward.
