Another Cecile moment

When I was growing up, our local priest used to make this joke about me quite frequently: “She understands things really quickly, but one needs to explain for a long time before she does”.

So, in another fit of Cecilean sentimentalism, I set out to have coffee with the guy sleeping on the street corner. But when I got there, he was still fast asleep, so what could I do? I actually waited for a couple of minutes, racking my brains and then decided that I’d go to the shop to make a packed lunch instead. So I got the nicest things I could think of, plus the obvious -things we learn in the Red Cross- food that are really nutritious, the obligatory bottle of water, um…

There isn’t much else I could do. I don’t know the city well enough to be able to point him to a truly nurturing place. I’m assuming that the places that do exist were somehow unsuitable -or packed up- at this point in time. Yet I longed for that nurturing place. I longed for him to experience actual love. Anything but this state of affairs.

But it’s the other way round. Divine love does not flow in that direction. From comfortable college girl to dilapidated guy sleeping in the rain. Quite the opposite. It shouts out from the street. It shouts to me. Come alive. Don’t die. Don’t die.

Love will never flow top-down from one person to another. I don’t know what “this” is which does flow top down, I don’t have a word for it, but it sure as hell isn’t love.