Franciscan Values Part IV

We Recognize that each person is worthy and valued simply for being.

“Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.”
― Rumi

“Sit, be still, and listen,
because you’re drunk
and we’re at
the edge of the roof.”
― Rumi

I believe life is an obstacle course.  We run through it to the best of our ability, stumble, fall, get up and try again.  Early on (if we’re lucky) we learn that this process is not going to be easy.  Life is supposed to be hard.  It’s supposed to challenge us to grow beyond our limitations.  When one challenge is bested, another will come soon after.

Each of us is the product of our creator, endowed with self-awareness, and set loose into the world to do what we will.  We are the children of the stars, given life so that the stars can see themselves through our eyes.  This divine spark that causes us to live and breathe causes our hearts to beat in our chests.  It drives us to overcome, or to be overcome by life’s obstacles.  Many of us spend the majority of our lives caught between the two extremes, but it’s the times when we are at our lowest, when we feel beaten up and beaten down; when we feel the crushing weight of a thousand bad choices threatening to choke the life out of us; & when we have nowhere else to turn that we need a helping hand.  We need somebody willing to offer us a kind word, a hot meal, a chance at salvation, & a chance to help ourselves.

Only through struggle do we learn.  Only through pain do we grow.  Every new obstacle in our path is an opportunity to overcome, an opportunity grow, an opportunity to be better today than we were yesterday.  Life is hard.  We’re all in it together, because together we overcome.  We recognize that each person is worthy and valued simply for being.