It’s my 57th Birthday! I talked with my biological mother this year for the first time, shortly before Mother’s day. Now, for the first time in my life, I’m celebrating another year of living knowing the story of how and where I was conceived and the story of my birth… that against all the misguided 1950’s wisdom and rules about “what’s best for theses mother and their babies,” she insisted on holding me before surrendered me to the care of unmet strangers with the benediction, “I love you.”

In those first blessed and fragile movements of this life, where grief and love mingled in all tenderness and hope, the course of my living was set. This past half-century-plus, I’ve surrendered time and time, a thousand times again, to moments as heavy laden as my first. I have been called time and time again to learn that, faith and hope are all that abide, and that there is no stronger force, none in life or in death, greater than the arms of that same Love which, long awaited, held me for what could never be time enough, relinquishing me, in all sadness and uncertainty to all the precariousness that is living.

Faith, hope and that same Love have nurtured me into a heart of grace for the patients that we serve: My birthday wish for year 57 is prayer and meaningful action. Too many times, we must surrender lives struggling with addiction, mental and physical illnesses to a society’s system (healthcare, mental health, social services) were no real help is available. We cannot say things like, “go here and they will help you try to end your unrelenting physical or emotional pain, or with a place to live, or food to eat, money for car insurance or gas so you can know the simple human dignity of paying for those thing with money you earn from the job that small bridge of financial assistance afforded.” Or things like, “go here and you will be able to get the best possible treatment for your normal human reaction to growing up in a family where those who ought to have cared for you betrayed that sacred trust.”

A kind PCB friend said to me, not all that long ago, “you could have chosen to do horses or anything, but you chose this (things religious).” What she didn’t know is that, I could not, cannot, choose anything less than living the Love of my mother’s benediction of my life; to pray and try to live as if the Word has a bit of flesh on it and to pray and try to act Compassion’s love in the world…

Please spend some time today praying and acting for a more just, compassionate system for the least among us….