For the Least of These

There's a Christian bookstore in Athens. After 3 years of wondering why there wasn't one, I found it yesterday. It's on Chase Street of Prince Ave and it's called the Carpenter's Shop. You should go. It has everything you could ever want.

I found a book there about world hunger. Semi-scoffing at the idea the author has of solving world hunger, I opened to the middle and began reading on the page that just so happened to be about this man's encounter with Mother Teresa. He went to visit her, and the very first thing she did was take his hand. She grabbed his fingers and as she pushed them down one by one, she said, "Remember this - 'for...the...least...of...these.'" One word for each finger. I don't think I'll ever forget it. And her words are backed up by the testimony of her life. The author commented that more than anything, Mother Teresa showed her love by touching the 'untouchable' and unwanted people. He said their faces lit up when she entered the room. I want to be that. Mother Teresa was poor. Ordinary. Yet her love for people through Jesus drove her to do what she did. There are most likely others who are doing the same thing but don't get the recognition from this world, but Jesus sees it. I want that.

Her advice to him: "Go out and love the people who are near you." That's all she was doing. That's what this world needs. There are people in every neighborhood, in every city, around every corner who need love. It's ordinary, and yet, it makes all the difference in the world.

I remembered another Mother Teresa quote I read last summer that shapes the way I act and think: 'We claim a loving, forgiving, humble God, but are we the living proof?' To be that for even 5 people in this world, that is enough. To be that for even 1 person maybe. For the least of these. In a way, we're all a least of these.