I'm writing from Aurora, where I spend much of my time as a hospice chaplain. I'm looking around, visiting my patients. I even got stuck here for 4.5 hours last month when I dropped my key fob down the sidewalk sewer! (the car-tastrophe, as it has become known in our household). 

I'm not seeing any gangs. 

In fact, I like it here. My oldest and his girlfriend live here.

This morning, my head keeps twitching in that weird way we do when we are trying to wrap our minds around cognitive-dissonance. A presidential candidate is claiming something is happening here that I literally do not see every day. What am I missing? 

Anyone who knows me understands that I work very hard, every day, to try to follow God. Where is God? Where is Jesus? Where is the Spirit? What is "this present darkness" of our time and where can I pitch in and use my gifts to tap into the invisible workings of another dimension where I can find truth? There are so many confusing messages out there and it takes effort to find our peace in the center of the storm -- in the place where we are not serving Empire, but are catching the powerful wave of God, rising above and beyond it and fulfilling our calling -- to love God and love others as ourselves. 

Where are the hurting? The down-trodden? The sick? The imprisoned? The broken? The "foreigner"? The "other"? Where am I logistically? Am I in Aurora for a reason? What is happening in YOUR corner of the world? How can you love others there? 

How did Jesus do it?

I'm finding it more and more difficult to figure it out. 

His followers had different opinions. SURELY, they did. Do we believe that the tax-collectors, the former Pharisees, the prostitutes, the lepers, the fisherman . . . . . agreed on everything? No doubt in my mind there were SOME BIG OPINIONS THERE.

And somehow, Jesus pulled them together. I can only imagine that Jesus' love was so utterly other-wordly that the power of His love over-rode the big opinions. Somehow, all of these followers were able to come together.

What is the magnitude of God's love? Can we even fathom?

And why can't we do this now? Where is that power? Can we tap into it? That Jesus is the Jesus I serve. Listen -- I cannot serve Empire Jesus. I don't know him. 

I'm calling you higher -- please join me! And don't miss it! 

I keep looking for the other. I keep inserting myself into the lives of those who need love right now. In my world, this comes in those God seems to put directly in front of me -- literally, the dying. Literally, the broken. 

But, as a healer, minister and trauma-trained therapist, I am really struggling to keep this balance. Sitting here in Aurora, I am at a loss. This is a super-cool place. My mind cannot fathom. I don't understand how things can be so upside-down right now.

So, I just keep trying to figure out that great big love of Jesus. And asking God to wrap me up in it -- let me exude it -- where does the Church need to be right now?

Jesus acted out the alternative to Empire.

I am personally convinced that we need to be in the group that is the helpers. Like Mr. Rogers said. Like the Holy Spirit is. And I want to encourage anyone who can to look for the signs of the times -- NOT in end-times rhetoric -- but in where we need to be, as people of God: helping the orphan, the widow, the homeless, the outsider, the sick, the dying, those in prison. The helpless. 

Come on, ya'll! Let's act out the alternative to our present Empire! As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. We will help mend the broken hearts, visit the dying and sick, help the widow and the orphan. 

Like Jesus. Because, after all, won't they know us by our love?