Some time ago, I heard about a waitress in a Texas dinner names Ivory Harlow.  She makes it her practice to help out people who come up to her counter.

As she says: “I often see a look of isolation in my customers’ eyes.  They come in the front door, wander to the counter, pick up the menu and look around the diner for something they can’t short-order: a connection.”

She goes on: “Peace begins with one person, but spreads like warmed syrup. When I connect with my neighbors, they return it in kind.”

I like that analogy.  Peace spreads like “warmed syrup.”

There are many people (too many) who live in a desert of loneliness.  They have lost a sense of community.  They have forgotten that they are a product of holiness.

Others are beaten down by their own negative self-talk: “I’m not good enough.  I’m not fit enough.  I’m not smart enough.  I’m not desirable.”

It doesn’t necessarily take a lot to provide someone with a counter balance to loneliness and negativity.  A compliment.  An assurance.  A smile.  An offer to help.  It spreads like warmed syrup.

Shortly before he left this earth, Jesus said: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you…”.  I think he said that because there is something magical about the peace Christ “leaves us and gives us.”   When you accept it, you end up leaving it for another.

In other words, when you incorporate Christ’s peace into your own heart, you find that it is something you can’t keep to yourself.  The assurance you find is something you want others to find.  In fact, you want the world to find it.

You have to share it and, when you do, it continues to spread from person to person.

Like warmed syrup.

See you in church,

–Rev. Dominic