Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.

• 2 Corinthians 13:11

We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing.

• 2 Thessalonians 1:3

And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another.

• 2 John 1:5

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

• Matthew 25:35-36

“We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I don’t know.”

• W. H. Auden

“We must love one another or die.”

• W. H. Auden, September 1, 1939

Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973) was a British poet who “broke” the rules.  His poetry was unique in almost all measuring points, with style, meter, tone, etc.  He covered a variety of topics, not shying away from religion or politics.  The poem,September 1, 1939, quoted above was his views on the start of World War II.  Soon after, he moved to the USA with his gay lover, but he quickly found another.  He married the bisexual daughter of Thomas Mann (Erika Mann) to protect her from the Nazis, but they never lived together.

But his tongue in cheek humor about the “others” is a deep philosophical issue.

I was laid off for an entire year in 1993-1994 (a Christmas present, of sorts, both times).  I went to work in Washington state and after nine months, the contract that I was working on was not renewed, one of those twenty-year contracts.

I say that as background.  The four additional months of being unemployed in a state with a high cost of living put my wife and me in the position of being “others.”  The pastor at our church out there pulled me aside after giving me a basket of food.  Even though I was nearly down to my last dollar, I did not want to take any charity.  I just wanted a job.  The pastor said that I had spent my life helping others. Now, if I could swallow my pride, it was my turn to receive the help.

For a lot of the people who are helped, they might know people in worse shape that they can help.  The person at the bottom end of that “circle of life” is there for us to help with no thought of getting anything in return.

Some people think that the teaching of Jesus after the Parable of the Sheep and Goats in Matthew 25 is literal.  They think it really is a “Christophany,” Jesus is the flesh.  But even from a figurative situation, we could say that those “others” are there as a test of our faith.

My wife would help others even if it was her last dollar.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory