Young man reaching for the sky

Hold onto Restraint, remember always to have compassion. No matter how great you are, no matter how powerful and cunning, and quick you are, You will still find compassion to be your greatest ally.

   Blessed are the mercifull, for they will receive mercy

   I’m brought to smile often at a memory of a trip I made to the market, a young man in his twenties was with his parents or grandparents. He was mentally disabled, and strode through the market with the simplicity and wonder of a child. He reached his hands up to the lights as a child will to the stars. His face had the radiant glow of a saint, and his loving caregivers indulged his whims. They strode the market with him, holding hands, loving and adaptable to his mind. They showed no shame of him, and he in his simplicity walked through the market happy in his ignorance. Looking through his eyes at a new world, one he had never seen before, until he recognized a food he loved, then he asked for it.

   There was something about his happy countenance that thrilled me, this is the essence of humanity itself, stripped of all indulgences, ego, and aspirations. This young man looks for nothing out of life, he lives from one moment to the next. And his caregivers provide all for him, and will love him to the end of their days.

   This is the way I see God providing for us in Paradise, we will not need to worry about anything, all will be taken care of by a loving and benevolent Master. But this is not the way of this fallen world. Although the world is beautiful it is also a harsh and nasty place, full of killing and dying. All things destroy something in order to live, from the smallest paramycium living on detritus on the forest floor, to the lion killing a fawn to eat. But one day the lion will lay down with the lamb, and the Shepard will watch over them all. But in this life this young man will be provided for by the loving couple until their demise, then perhaps some others will watch over him, and someday I may see him in his old age, walking through the market with the same look of wonder in his eyes, hands reaching to the sky.

   From the Gospel of Jesus Christ

   Ask and it will be given, seek and you will find,
   knock and the door will be opened.
   For everyone who asks recieves, and he who seeks finds,
   and to all who knock, the door will be opened.
   What man among you when his son asks for bread would give him a stone?
   And when he asks for a fish would give him a snake?
   If you then who are imperfect know how to give good gifts to your children,
   how much more will your Father
   who is perfect give good things to those who ask him?
   Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about what you will eat,
   or what you will wear, isn’t your life more than it’s food?
   And your body more than it’s clothing?
   Look at the birds of the sky, they neither sow nor reap,
   nor gather into barns, yet God feeds them.

   Which of you by thinking can add a day to his life?
   And why do you worry about clothing?
   Consider the lillies of the field, how they grow,
   they neither toil nor spin, and yet I tell you
   that not even Solomon in all his glory was robed like one of these.
   Therefore if God so clothes the grass that grows in the field today,
   and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, won’t he all the more clothe you?

   So don’t worry about these things and say ‘what will we eat, and what will we wear’,
   for that is what the gentiles seek,
   and your Father knows that you need these things, but first seek the Kingdom of God.
   And these things will be given to you as well.