People Who Need People

Welp, it is Christmas, and our Lord has come. Appropriately, Etta James is in the background singing "At last my love has come around." Thanks Pandora motown station, you rock. As a recent Pope has said, "In the realm of divine providence, there are no mere coincidences."

All soul-filled(but rather pitchy, to be perfectly honest. [Sorry Etta]) occurrences aside, my priest hit on a point in his homilies during the past few days that I would really like to explore and share. "We are people who need people" says Father Kosem.

We are people who need people. As I sat in the pews listening, the poet within me began to smile. It was beautiful, and perfect. We are people who need people, that is the way we are designed. We hunger and thirst to relate to mankind. Christianity is no strictly personal nor singular religion. Even our God is relation, the Trinity is defined by how the persons relate to each other. It would seem fitting, then, if we are created from and reflect this God, then our personhood is defined by our relation, and our natural end depends on relating to one another. If we do not relate, we become an imperfect person, missing the mark of who we were created to be. Even more than just relating to one another, the Trinity relates in love. It would then follow that if we do not relate in love, we are imperfect as humans, we are missing what we were truly meant to be.

And because of this, because of the very reason that we were designed to reach out to the rest of mankind in love to be completed, Christ became incarnate. He became man so that we could relate to him, not just as his creation, but as his own kind. If we are people who need people, then God needed to become one of those people. Not only can we now relate to him as brothers, but he can relate to us in the same way.

When we make friendships and enter into relationships, the other person, in a way, completes us. The love they share with us fills something inside of us. They are, however, finite. They can't totally heal us.

Christ is infinite. When he, as our brother, shares his love with us, it does more than just partially heals us. It completes us, and we become the very things that we were created to be, for we can now relate in perfect love. 

The priest then told a story. I'm adapting it to my own particular likings, and since I have recently been reading the Arabian Nights, my personal likings involve genies and magic. This little story isn't set in the Middle East though, it is in Ireland. Yeah.

 Once there was a wealthy man, who owned a stable and was a great friend of God. He spent many hours in prayer, during the morning, during the night, and intermittently throughout the day. He was extremely generous with his wealth, and he could ask God for anything, and it would surely be granted him. He was well known across the land for his great horses, and he loved them very dearly. People came from all over the world to marvel at the shine of their coats, the strength of their legs, and the speed of their strides as they galloped along the grassy knolls.

Not only was high regard spread all throughout the land, but envy was as well. There was a treacherous genie who saw the horses and desired them for himself. So one night after the sun had gone down and the stable owner to sleep, he transformed himself into a horse. He tricked all the horses of the man to follow him into the field that the genie owned, about one mile away from the stables they called home. When the stable owner awoke, he found that his horses were gone, and we wept bitterly. He went to all of his neighbors, and asked them if they had seen his precious horses. No one had any information, for the genie had taken the horses during the darkest hour of night. The man wept bitterly, but he decided he would try one last house.

He knocked, and the genie came and greeted him.
"What do you want, stable man?"
"Oh terrible genie, my horses, they have escaped! Have you seen them? Surely a creature of your stature must have seen them with your sharp eyes."
The genie, not being the brightest of creatures, told him everything.
"Listen to me, I have taken your horses and put them under my spell. They will remain with me, and there is not a thing you, human, can do about it."
At this the genie slammed the door shut and laughed to himself. The stable owner wept bitterly yet again, but he began devising ways to get his horses back. He asked God for a barrel of oats and grains, and behold, it was granted him. He tried to lure the horses with the oats and grains, but they had no effect. Next, he asked God for forty female horses, and yet again, they were granted him. He tried to arouse the horses and bring them forth with the female horses, but the horses seemed unaffected. The man was completely dumbfounded. "Surely, if they were not brought forth by the female horses, I am doomed to live without my beloved horses with me."

He sat and began to think. Suddenly, the words of the genie came back to him. "They will remain with me, and there is not a thing you, human, can do about it." Human. He prayed to God once more, but this time he said "Lord, I beg thee. You have never failed to hear me, and I ask that you hear me one more time. I am a wealthy man of great fame and fortune, and I have much to be proud of. I ask, however, that you deprive me of what I have. Remove from me my fine cloaks and even my precious jewels, and I beg thee, Lord, to grant that I may become a horse." The Lord heard his prayers with delight. God turned him into a horse, and the stable man entered the domain of his precious horses. At first he was a stranger to them, but then he talked to them. He told them of all the things that had happened to them, and they came to love him as their own. Finally, when their trust had been gained, he led them out of the genie's fileds and brought them back to his stables. The horses were joyous to be with their master and loved him now in a way they never had before, but the master was far more joyous than they, for he had reconciled his lost beloved with himself.

All he needed was to become a horse.

Peace, and may the tender love of the infant Jesus be with you.
The Boy Pilgrim