I am watching the cold air spin my windchimes on the deck. It’s not a tinkling, gentle breeze swaying the metal tubes, but a cacophonous clattering, it sounds raucous and demanding: this is a windy, cold day. As of writing, the rain has ended and the warm wet is now a cool- cooler- cold- biting temperature. Back into the 20s tonight, and those of us with places to call home are happy the electricity is on, and the heat is pumping.
Two weeks ago, right as the air temperature was dipping into some of the lowest lows I can remember in a December, there were many people who didn’t know where they would spend the biting cold nights. Would it be under a bridge? Huddling in the woods in a makeshift shelter? The unhoused community was met with a combination of grace and mercy by the good deeds of those movers and shakers who call meetings, adjust timeframes, pull strings and look outside of the box to make good works happen.
Now there is plenty left to be done, and plenty we can do, especially in this community where we do look out for one another, and that neighbor, he is a refugee in our country, for whatever reason or choices he may have made or fate thrust upon him, he has been left literally out in the cold. That woman is the least of these. We are called to look out for one another, and we are meant to be the good that we want to see in the world, in each other. No matter what is happening internationally, nationally or even state-wide, our deepest impacts are local, and we can truly change people’s daily lives with the actions we take.