Sharing all Good Things

Sharing all Good Things

(“Be very sure…that you enter into a generous common life with those who have trained you, sharing all the good things that you have and experience.” Galatians 6:6 [The Message])

The circuit-rider, coat and tatters, rode through the woods
from station to preaching station, stopping barely for water
and a breath of forest air to fill his ailing lungs and refresh
his gauntly frame. The coat was holes, his shirt coffee as dirt,
and his boots patched like centenary quits.

The sun had not tanned him, he was nearly white as death,
the days stealing his health as he rode from place to place.
There was no pay for doctors, no time to seek relief, only
the moments to share the best news, the words to lift the lonely
from their isolated grief.

Yet his horse was strong, brawny and sleek,
well-kept, with a stallion’s physique.
Fed the best of the best, and rested every moment allowed,
riding slowly under sun, making time under clouds.

It was a bold contrast, and suspicion to each eye,
why the beast was so well fed, healthy to say the least,
and asked, upon departure from one small chapel, “Why?”
“It is I who look after the animal,” was his reply,
“but you who look after me.”