Pastor’s corner

Life has a way of separating people or gathering them together, and it uses the darnedest circumstances in the process. We, as humans, are separated not just by where we are and where we aren’t, but by what we can do and what we cannot do. Who we know and who we get along with; by whom we don’t know and by whom rubs us the wrong way. Those who text and those who don’t. Even computers join into the process of creating an ever increasing number of small isolated groups. There are those who “code” and those who don’t. And of course, the most famous one: those who have lost files and those who will.

Wait! That last one isn’t quite as discriminating as I initially thought. Maybe becoming one who has lost is not a disconnecting action but a gathering action…one that continues to collect people into one common group. A group of people that have experienced loss, a group that crosses all the demographic boundaries of age, color, orientation and language. We all have lost something. Something valuable, reminiscent and irreplaceable. Even toddlers have lost their “binkies.”

Many people act as though they have never lost anything. Maybe they haven’t come to grips with it. Perhaps their loss is a loss of empathy and compassion.

None-the-less, regardless of your station or location in life, I expect that you’ve lost something. Maybe the loss is searing and new, or perhaps it is dull and distant. One thing is undoubtedly true—you, me, that nice lady sitting in the chair over there and that brooding young man riding a board over that-a-way are gathered into one category—those who have suffered loss.

We are not alone. We have joined the company that loves company. It is a precondition of living on Earth. It is the one way that we are not ever going to be alone no matter how lonely the pain makes us feel.

That loneliness is a lie; we are not alone. We have all experienced loss.

To feel alone, to feel separated from each other is a widespread experience. You are not, no matter how much it feels like you are, on that lonely road alone. There is a road there, however. This road has been traveled by many. The pavement of the road serves as the common ground for each of us to reach out to each other, to gather those who are near and dear to us. Not to scatter, but to gather, because we all have suffered loss and we have it to unify us—to cause us to have compassion and empathy for each other.

May the God of all comfort and mercy cause his presence to be known by you in this time and place, on this road and in this company. May he bring you peace and hope in their time just as he is wont to do.

Dave McCue, pastor of both Colfax and St. John United Methodist Churches