Gladness and Need

Since my first semester of college two years ago, I have begun the academic year by reading and reflecting on Douglas McKelvey's Liturgy for Students and Scholars. Many lines haunt me from the poignant and wistful poem, but this year one in particular has brought tears of joy (1) to my eyes on several occasions.

    Begin to show me where
    my own deep gladness
    and the world's deep need might meet.

Just this morning, as I crossed the street to the little cottage that houses my school's Honor's College, I felt the words beat with my footsteps, whispering the dear phrases under my breath. My deep gladness, world's deep need. My deep gladness, world's deep need.

A few days ago, I listened to John Green's Everything Is Tuberculosis. I have never read any of his other works, but on a whim I listened to this history of the illness tuberculosis and finished the albeit short audiobook in a single day. I have always been struck by the humanity of illness and disability, and the fact that at its root, illness and disability are particularly the most human yet least natural thing in the world.

Illness is, of course, humanity's fault—the result of our pride that resulted in our spiritual brokenness, and along with it all the desolation and sorrow of the Creation groaning in eager longing for its restoration. So human in its origin, yet so unnatural to how things were meant to be.

There is a ministry in my college town that serves the homeless population. Homelessness is a deeply complex issue, and I sat listening to the ministry and humanity they extend to people made in the image of God. Yes, there are areas of policy that need reformed—immigration reform, welfare reform, healthcare reform. But I am less concerned for the general public to take up one of these mantles and wage war. Instead, where does gladness and need overlap for the individual?

What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? Tertullian asked. What has Athens to do with the alphabet streets of Anderson, South Carolina? "I know what Jerusalem has to do with them," the staff member of that nonprofit mumbled. Jerusalem, a Man who ate with sinners, who healed on the Sabbath, who called out a woman living in adultery by offering her Living Water. Jesus, who loved the least of these by first addressing their physical needs that the eyes of their hearts might be open to their spiritual condition which was oh so much worse.

Where does my deep gladness meet the world's deep need? What bricks has the Lord asked me to lay on the path to his coming Kingdom? How am I called to be faithful to labor for the plentiful harvest? What promises have the Lord given me that I may lay on the altar for him?

And, what of your own?

(1) Joy, as C.S. Lewis understood the term: the longing for something more, the blue flower, a melancholy and fleeting hope.