When I was in college, I went to hear Robert Fulghum speak. It was at the height of his popularity, and there was a standing-room-only crowd at Bass Concert Hall in Austin, Texas; several thousand college students were packed in to hear a middle-aged, bearded Unitarian minister from Waco. These were college students, in the thousands, hanging on this man's every word.

At one point, he looked out into the crowd and paused thoughtfully. Then he said, slowly, "The one thing that we all have in common, all of us, is that we want to be loved." He let that thought hang in the air for several seconds. I looked around and saw others doing the same. We were all thinking the same thing: my God, he's right! It was so clear, so obvious, and yet so utterly unrecognized. When I heard those words, my perspective on human nature underwent a radical shift that I've maintained to this day. I began to see the longing and the fear in other people, where before I'd seen malice and standoffishness. We are lonely people; and our lives conspire to make us lonelier still.

What I lacked, however, were the tools and the will to do anything about it. I went back to my day-to-day life still cynical, still mistrusting, still looking out for number one. But on a barely conscious level, I realized that I was doing something wrong. I felt as though I had, in the words of Mark, "discovered a great treasure in a field," but instead of rushing off and pawning all my possessions to purchase that field, I'd just walked on by.

Over the years, I've written things in my paper journals that would make anyone blush; that is the proper purview for paper journals. One theme that recurs constantly, starting even before that Fulghum encounter, is the desperate desire to help people; to be there for others in some meaningful way. But I always kept it hidden, always relegated it to the back drawer of my dresser along with all my other secret thoughts and wishes. I was too afraid to live into that thought, too scared to believe that I might have anything that would be of use to anyone else. How, I wondered, could I help anyone else, when my own life was such a mess?

I have spent a lifetime hollowing out a little shell for myself that I could hide in. I wasn't good enough, compassionate enough, smart enough to help heal others' emotional wounds. I was too broken myself. I was too shy, too busy, too bad at verbal communication, too this, too that. Life had taught me that when you speak up and say, "I, too, am afriad. I, too, hurt," that life will offer one of two responses: either you will be put in your place as a whiner, or you'll be swiftly taken advantage of.

But rediscovering myself of late, I realize that the only thing that's keeping me from opening myself up to others in this way is my own stubborn will and my deep fears of rejection and low self-esteem. Live boldly, I have not. Seize the day, I have postponed.

But my faith is slowly teaching me a new way to live. The power of the love of God as expressed through other human beings, as broken and confused as I am, is utterly remarkable. It is, without question, one of the great miracles of life. Each of us knows a True Christian, someone who is unafraid to share, unafraid to simply be who and what they are. These people astound us with their grace and compassion, and we wonder what they know that we don't. We say, "Kathleen is such an amazing person," (as we at our church often say about a particular Kathleen) and by doing so we let ourselves off the hook because we, by contrast, are not so amazing. We, we reassure ourselves slyly, could never be the person that Kathleen is.

But who is Kathleen? Is she any less human and fragile than we are? Or has she simply made a choice? A choice to live as though the life and words of Jesus are as real to her as stop signs and stones and other people's pain?

I believe that what is remarkable about Kathleen is not her innate gifts, which are distributed to all in one way or another and which are none of our doing, but rather her choice, her daily, constant choice to live as the real, visible hands and feet of Christ in the world. Nothing could be more daring, or more beautiful, or more cherishable than that. And if Kathleen can make that choice, so can we. So can I. I can choose to live as though my life is merely a supermarket for my own gratification, or I can live as though each person I encounter is deeply worthy of love, and as in need of it as I am.

I believe that we must love God and love our neighbor as ourself. But I also believe that we must love God so that we are able to love our neighbor as ourself. What wisdom I have teaches me that without our love for God, our love for each other is fleeting, opportunistic, and rare. I do not know why this is so. I wish it were not so. But I have seen it, again and again and again, and it would take a lot of evidence to make me believe otherwise.

This weekend, an old college friend came to visit with her husband. She was, coincidentally, one of the people at the Robert Fulghum talk. But she was also the first person I ever met at college. I remember from the day we met being so impressed by her bearing and compassionate nature. She put me at ease during a weekend college orientation that had brought up every personal defense mechanism in my possession. I was scared and lonely, and she made me feel like a person again.

We were sitting drinking coffee last Saturday night, and her husband asked me how we'd met. She responded, "He was the first person I met at college, during orientation. I was so terrified I thought I was going to scream; it was so great to find a friend." I'd had no idea. Until that moment I'd been convinced that it was only she that had been helping me.

And so it is, I think, with each of us; we come together in our fear and loneliness and we find that another person's need is the mother of our own compassion, awakening the grace within us, sometimes in ways that we will never know, never realize, until many years later if ever. That, I believe, is the basis of the Christian life. That's where rubber meets road. That's where it all begins.

I wanted to thank Real Live Preacher for sending everyone this way, and all of you who've been stopping by and reading and commenting. So, thanks!

What a blessing this site has become to me in such a short time. Please do stick around and let's get acquainted, you and me.