On authenticity and dirty feet

I am sitting here biding my time before we pick up my bro and head to the matinee hockey game.

Yesterday, at church we discussed the second commitment which is based on the second commandment. The commandment is Exodus 20:4, Thou shalt not make unto the a graven image. The commitment is to authenticity and living and behaving in a way that is in line with your core values.

A timely piece of the lesson was the mentioning of Mark 6:11: And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them. If you are you which is all you can be, and people can not or will not accept you, then move on. Don't waste time trying to be everything to everyone because ultimately, it's yourself and your goodness that you lose. 

Flash ahead to our late night Caribou run. We were listening to the Allen Hunt show, and one of the topics of discussion was about friends and people's disbelief at his stating that he had seven good friends that he could count on. The impetus for this a sad story of a woman who posted on her Facebook status that she was going to kill herself and not a single person who read it reached out to help her. 


What does one have to do with the other? I would have to say that I do not have many friends. Even more so since when Allen Hunt was talking about the ways he could rely on his friends, I can't say that I have people outside of my husband, a couple of family members, and an old friend who can be counted on in the same way. We have tried to reach out and make connections, but always with such resistance. You would think we were asking people to come club seal pups or something. So, when I heard Jesus' advice, it really resonated with me. I'm a good person, as is my husband and our children, and we individually and collectively have a lot to share and this right here is me dusting my feet of all those people for whom we are not worthy. 


I have for sometime contemplated taking my FB down to people who would actually give a damn. It would probably be a short list, and I am okay with that because I have always felt that life should be about quality and not quantity. Ironically, in many aspects I do have both. 

To be yourself

in a world

that is constantly

trying to make you 

something else

is the greatest

accomplishment.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson~