What happens when all your children die?

Three sisters die in a fire.

When All Is Taken Away

Two tragedies, one message of love, and ‘acts of pure kindness.’

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/15/her-girls-killed-in-a-fire-madonna-badger-finds-a-way-to-go-on.html

***

Some people are unable to love - and not through fault of their own.

Perhaps they were "made that way." 

Or perhaps trauma broke them early and the armor they once wore for protection became such a part of them that, when grown, they dared not remove it for fear of opening a wound so deep they would bleed out.

Then, there are those "on the other side" - those who claim to be lovers of God but whose lives seethe with vengeance and vindictiveness: they applaud violence and cheer swift death on "the unworthy."

For the damned... For those who can "go to hell!" 

These geysers of spite are taxonomized by their continual appeal to the Old Testament, particularly scenes of God smiting sinners and working violence on "the undeserving." 

Brimming with ill will, they seldom cite The Four Gospels and rarely speak the words Yeshua himself spoke. 

"Put up your sword." 

"Love your enemies."

"Do to others what you would have them do to you."

"Let the one without sin cast the first stone."

These bitter souls shun "The Good News" as if it harbored a contagion and they fear an infection that would fulminate right down to the soul, burning away the ill will that lies at their center. 

But even those who are damaged forever, those who cannot love in any joyful way... what they (and all of us) can do (because it only requires force of will) is to provide service.

Needed service.

Service to anyone, but especially those unlike ourselves.

Service to people with different beliefs, with different Gods. 

Service to people with no belief and no God. 

Service to those who look nothing like us.

Service to people who are darker than we.

Service to people who epitomize our vision of "evil."

To people who smell bad.

People with rheumy eyes, runny nose, mucousy mouth.

People who make us recoil.

People who make us feel at home in hate.