Work while it is still day

When I think about how undeservedly blessed I am to be able to do the work of Stone Soup Kitchen, it reminds me of this quote from John Wesley, the founder of Methodism.  I am not a member of the Methodist church, but I deeply appreciate a lot of Wesley's writings.  In a world as crazy as ours, my personal tendency is to want to retreat and just form a little enclave with a few good friends and family.  I don't want to put myself out there and risk having people be angry at me for my public decisions, suspicious of my motives, or scornful of what they view as my privileged activism.  Because yup, I am extremely privileged, but that's a story for another time.

This quote reminds me that time is short.  It seems that I blinked and now I'm in my 60s.  Wasn't it just yesterday that I was growing up IN the '60s?  But my formative years were more in the '70s, with their out-of-control inflation and the death knell to any kind of automatic respect for authority.  And in the middle of it all, the Jesus Movement.  I fell in love with Jesus at 16, and Jesus never told me to retreat into my little enclave...He told me that whatever I did for the least of his brothers and sisters, I did it for Him.  

So even though sometimes I would love to retreat, there is still too much work to do.