We’ve been noticing some of our own hunger as winter has left us lean, however these first days of spring have begun. It is a deeply good practice to notice our hunger, to bring that need and vulnerability to God, to receive the sustenance we long for. And also: every person around us is in some particular season as well, whether that matches up with what we expect of winter’s ending and spring’s beginning (or summer’s ending and autumn’s beginning, in the Southern Hemisphere!) or not. When you hear someone else’s hunger, how do you respond? It can be a part of both us and others we don’t like to see. Perhaps we avert our eyes from the cardboard sign, or we sigh at our child being hungry *again*, when we JUST fed them. And we do this toward our own souls, too, don’t we? “Needy again?! Didn’t you just have an extravagant soul-meal like last week sometime??” Perhaps we have learned in the course of our lives that to feel need is to feel shame; or perhaps we experience hunger pains as so painful we will do anything to prevent ourselves from even *feeling* them. How does this translate into how we care for others with similar neediness? What might it be to honor the hunger we see—in ourselves and in others? To listen in and hear the vulnerability, the need, without shame or anxiety? Without even needing to “fix” the need, only to witness the hunger. Keep your eyes open the rest of this week—both outwardly and inwardly—and notice. What are the times your compassion shows up? When does that feel really far from your experience? Can you offer yourself the compassion you might offer another? Can you receive that from someone else? Just notice. Be present to the hunger.

Posted by Jamie Bonilla at 2023-03-23 13:30:00 UTC