We sometimes hear inspiring and somewhat miraculous stories of random meetings with strangers that can’t be explained in earthly terms. Non -believers call these ‘coincidences”. Well, I had such an experience recently with my new landscaper who stopped by to give me an estimate for pruning services for my property. I don’t even know his first name, but when he learned I had been sick--he asked me if he could pray for me and with me? I’ve been struggling physically and mentally for 17 days with an unresolved virus that has attacked my lungs causing great anxiety and physical pain. His visit opened my heart, my lungs and my mind to an even deeper understanding of the power of prayer and the way God chooses to heal us in unexpected ways. In some ways, you could say “pruning” has taken on a new meaning for me.

Greg Boyle shares in his Book: Tattoos on the Heart: “No daylight to separate us. Only kinship. Inching ourselves closer to creating a community of kinship such that God might recognize it. Soon we imagine, with God, this circle of compassion. Then we imagine no one standing outside of that circle, moving ourselves closer to the margins so that the margins themselves will be erased. We stand there with those whose dignity has been denied. We locate ourselves with the poor and the powerless and the voiceless. At the edges, we join the easily despised and the readily left out. We stand with the demonized so that the demonizing will stop. We situate ourselves right next to the disposable so that the day will come when we stop throwing people away.”