Friends, the entire world is our parish. Pull up a chair around the biggest table, one for each person you encounter and provide a hearty meal and facilitate conversation laced in love. Help give a voice to the vulnerable and those who can't speak for themselves and be concerned with others' pain. Shout justice and kindness from the mountaintops and the deepest valleys. How is it even possible to find it in ourselves to treat God's people as less than human? Jesus himself was a refugee. Love your neighbors, the strangers, those who look like you and those who don't. Pull up the chairs.

I think a lot of us have grown numb towards the horrible stories we watch on the news because inhumane things are happening so frequently. Feeling nothing and doing nothing will solve nothing. Our hearts need to break every day with the humans who are hurting around this world that seems to be falling apart — both near and very far away from our homes.

We have to look at our hearts and decide whether we’re going to treat living, breathing humans with love or with fear. There are certainly bad people but they are a small handful separated from those who are good.

We have to figure out how we can mend this world’s injustice with love.
Regain compassion.
Tear down prejudice and fear.
Be a helper and a healer.
Look at children and learn from them. 

"[The words in the letter] are the words of a six-year-old boy — a young child who has not learned to be cynical or suspicious or fearful of other people because of where they come from, how they look, or how they pray."