Home Tools for your Journey April 20

Sunday, April 20

Why then have you not kept watch over your lord the king? For one of the people came in to destroy your lord the king.
—1 Samuel 26:15

We just need to look out for one another. Shakespeare was right when he wrote that no one is an island, and yet we often live our lives in direct opposition to that timeless truth. Not only do we find ourselves unable to sustain a spirit of awareness about our own lives, we also find that we can be so completely engrossed in the affairs of our own daily existence that we are asleep to the needs of others around us who are at risk.

The other hurdle, of course, is that serving as a wakeful wall of protection for others can seem like yet another "should" on our to-do list. It takes an incredible amount of focus and concentration simply to attend to and follow-through on all the responsibilities of our own life, much less have to watch out for others.

Surprisingly, when we keep our eyes and heart, our soul and mind poised in watchfulness, on the lookout for those things that bring harm to others, we find that personal awareness is no longer so difficult to maintain. The time required to fulfill the plethora of responsibilities in our own lives seems to lessen.

When we are willing to blanket others like early morning dew, heaven drops a layer of protection around us, and we find ourselves slipping into a room of wholeness and balance that before seemed as elusive as trying to catch the moon.

O God, keep me alert to the needs of those who are prey to the whims of those stronger than themselves.

The Signposts for April are written by Renée Miller and originally appeared on explorefaith.org in May 2004.