This Open Sermon was written by and published for Edan :
Strength through Love
By Edan
Every week I make a trip to a mental health facility to see someone I care
about. This trip is hard because each time I go, I am visiting a place I still
fear, in order to be there for this person. Every week after I come out I begin
building myself back up so I have the strength to go again next time.
It’s easy to have love and compassion when the situations we find ourselves
in are favourable; when both ourselves and others are happy or, if not happy,
dealing with life with strength we already have.
It is much harder to stick with love when every time you face the person you
love, you are sacrificing a little bit of yourself just to be there.
Whenever I go I often think of the twelfth maxim:
Jedi believe that love and compassion are central to their lives. We must love
and care for each other as we must love and care for ourselves; by doing
this we envelop all life in the positivity of our actions and thoughts. We are
providers and beacons of hope.
Jedi find love and compassion within themselves, even when the outcome is
bleak, and even when the journey is hard. We are strong, when others are
faltering. We are the rock, when the river is washing others away.
Sometimes this is easy, and other times it means self-sacrifice. By standing
strong when others cannot, we Jedi can be the light that shines in the
darkness, even if we are struggling with darkness ourselves. And we may find
that along the way, we become all the stronger for it.
