Well, the town is buzzing with the students from the university. This is my first go round with the Morehead rhythm of: Students; No Students; then Students again. During these 5 months (163 days from March 1st, 2017 to today, August 12, 2017) I’ve been here, I’ve traveled out of this county at least 20 times, which means at least 20 times I have seen the sign that welcomes us to Rowan County saying something like, “Rowan County, Home of Academic Excellence.” One would hope that having seen the sign so many times I would be confident in the exact wording of that observation by now, but I don’t ~ however you can trust me; I have the gist of it down. 
 
This is what I find almost earth shatteringly mystical about that sign – it is so true, and so powerful, and so amazing, and here we are walking or driving around town, acting as though what has been happening in this area since 1887 is ordinary, when it is actually, sublime.
 
Education makes huge differences in lives, and even one life can make a difference in one family and community, and changed communities can influence the wider communities . . . every life has the potential to create impressive, and yet still unnoticeable changes.  There are those lives who do create noticeable changes. Recently I received a scan of some notes written by Inez Faith Humphrey on “Mrs. Phoebe E. Button (1840-1892)”.  This is one life (two if you count her son, Frank along with her, but this was written about Phoebe) of a soul dedicated to changing lives for the better, and doing so through education:
 
"Sometimes a person’s service is measured, not so much by details remembered or recorded about the person, as by a movement started, the spirit put into the service, and the later results of the movement. Such is the case with Mrs. Phoebe Button.

In 1887, when Rowan County, Kentucky, was so torn by feuds that it was known as 'Bloody Rowan,' Mrs. Button and her son Frank came to Morehead, the county seat, to establish a school for the purpose of building up the spirit of good will that would eradicate the desire for 'feudin’ and fightin’.
…
From the beginning, Mrs. Phoebe Button had the right idea of teaching students so that they in turn could teach others. At the end of seventeen years the school had prepared three hundred teachers, and the number was increasing."
 
So now we are in 2017, 180 years later, and the town is buzzing with college students and professors gearing up for a new exciting year, wondering what will be learned, discovered, embraced, experienced in the semesters to come.  And this is a miracle which has come from a lot of hard work and dedication of individuals who have hung on to principles and morals, and ethics ~ and then trusted that if we take these steps we will be instruments of grace and truth to the world around us.  And I believe that one can have no doubt, that what we do in the faith of goodness and mercy, will bear the fruit, whether we are aware of them or not. 
 
May we walk these streets aware of the awe-inspiring mystery of the love of God, others, and education, and how we are a part of it all.

​Jesus says to love your enemies, and so it is something many of us strive to do.  But we are humans, and we have emotional challenges. I know it can be easy for me to love other people’s enemies, because I do not have the experience of mistrust that the others’ have.  And sometimes, I see the pain that others’ carry from their traumas and my heart aches.  I so wish they could be free of the pain they carry, from the loss of trust.
 
I am reminded of the story about the pastor who carried a glass of water and asked how heavy it was.  People were guessing the weight, and then the Pastor said that the weight depended upon how long the glass was held.  The longer it was held, the heavier the glass became.  She continued saying, this is also true with the pain we carry from anger, disappointments, etc.  The longer we carry them, the heavier they become.
 
What is also true is that the longer we carry them, the more insidious a part of us they become and the harder it is to separate our precious, beloved soul from the pain we carry.  They become part of who we are, and affect us in ways we may be unaware of.  They can surprise us and we react to the past pain in present moments when it may or may not be appropriate.
 
Pain is important to learn from.  I was kicking myself yesterday because I put some fresh meat in a greased frying pan, and the hot oil splashed up onto the tender part of the inside of my wrist.  As I was going to the cold water, I had to laugh at myself.  How many years have I been cooking?  How many times have I burnt myself, on oil, on the oven rack, on a hot pan . . .?  So many decades of burning myself in the kitchen in so many ways possible, and I still haven’t learned . . . I had to laugh and shake my head, and remember “Sighs too great for words…” Not learning from pain can cause us a lot of pain . . . physically and emotionally.
 
So I have as the title to this Blog, “How To Love And Be Loved By Everyone” because it seems like the kindest thing to live a life of grace – and it seems to be what Jesus wishes for us.  The real world is full of people who are carrying their glasses of pain with them, and we never know what might set us off, or what we might do to set others off.  And it would be so lovely if we could somehow set those glasses down, forever.  I sometimes think I can do that, and then suddenly, I see I have picked it back up, unawares.
 
The best I can think of, as a response to “How To Love And Be Loved By Everyone” is that it honestly is impossible to do.  Even the most beloved son of God was incapable of being loved by everyone, but he seemed amazingly capable of loving everyone, which is why he lives on to this day, which is what makes him God.  But he wanted to encourage humanity to keep trying ~ to make it our goal ~ because trying to love everyone is the most productive way to self discovery and self awareness, and self discovery and self awareness is the most intimate way to discover the God parts of our being.
 
Knowing our pain, being aware of those people and events which have caused us pain, is one way to begin to let go of the glass, and to free us to live in joy with God.  Setting the glasses of hurt down on the alter of God’s mercy frees us from the burden, and can free the other as well, and be an opening to reconciliation and the amazing power which comes from that.  Living in joy with God . . . begets more joy, and the world need all of that they can get!