(Drawing shared with permission from Beth Knowles on behalf of the young artist Chase.)

What if we were to look out for our neighbors in all things? What would it mean to know that our neighbors are concerned for our well being?

Being single for most of my adult life, I have some sense of what it means to go it alone. And, yet, despite my own best efforts at self-sufficiency, I have been touched and moved by the generosity of not just friends and neighbors but also strangers. Friends who checked in on me after surgery, who brought me meals, who ran errands, who took the time to sit with me. Strangers who offered a kind word, who helped carry a load, who bothered to smile and look me in the eye.

This drawing captures an often-illusive phenomenon: connection. Connection is something each of us is wired for, something each of us craves. Yet the thought of it can be unsettling, because it causes us to confront our own vulnerability.

Yesterday, at our diocesan convention, I sat at lunch with Bishop Henderson, who recently visited Church Without Walls, to worship with us and confirm some of our congregants. He told me he’d never experienced anything like it. “Sure,” he said, “I’ve participated in feeding programs and the like. But there was always a table between me and the people.” What he described was the uncomfortability and wonder of simply being with the other, without distraction, without some activity or barrier to hide behind.

At the end of his time with our congregation, Bishop Henderson joined with us as we took a church photo. After it was published someone remarked, “Shouldn’t you have had the bishop up front?” In the photo Bishop Henderson is surrounded by the crowd, embraced by the people (you’d have to look close to spot his purple shirt). By freely losing himself in our midst, he connects with us and we connect with him – each of us a child of the One who never stops dreaming for the good of all.