Dalton Roberts

Dalton Roberts
--My Sunday Journal

MY SUNDAY JOURNAL
By Dalton Roberts
IPS Feature
8-18-02

OUR PAY IS THE PRIVILEGE

Paul said something to the people of Corinth that hits me where I live. He was reminding the Corinthians that he and Barnabas didn't accept pay when they ministered to them. Then he said, "What pay do I get?...the privilege." (I Cor.9:18)

I just got home from playing a benefit for a 3 year old boy with cancer. What pay did I get? The privilege and deep internal reward we experience when we reach out in love to others. If that little boy can go through those terrible cancer treatments, I can take my guitar and play some songs to raise money for him.

Can you think of anything that makes you feel better than to do something kind and loving for another human being?

What a privilege it is for me to be healthy enough to do something, What a privilege to do it by making music, one of my chief joys in life. What a joy to be among people cooking and serving food to help the cause, people just showing up to listen to the music and eat the food, people who just came to hug the family and tell them they care.

I have played the Grand Ole Opry and I can tell you, there was more fulfillment in being on a porch with two dozen musicians playing and praying for a beautiful little boy to live than there was in standing on that famous stage.

The pay is the privilege and what a huge paycheck it is.

ONE LOAF OF BREAD

You may have noticed I am reading in Corinthians in my daily meditation time and I found this line in one of the translations of I Cor. 10:17: "There is one loaf of bread, all of us...we all share the same loaf."

Tell that to some religious fanatic terrorist. He may not see it but he cannot damage one person without damaging himself and those he loves. Tell that to someone in a denomination who thinks their way is the only way.

There are over 400 denominations and sects of Christianity alone but there is only one loaf. There may be a dozen major world religions, but there is only one loaf of humanity.

There is not an "other" out there for us to hate. There is one loaf. The terrorist may not remember this fundamental truth but that doesn't keep you and I from realizing it. We can spread the yeast of our love throughout the whole loaf and hope for the day that the whole loaf will realize it is one.

So I'm an unrealistic dreamer. Best I can figure, it's only the unrealistic dreamers who have ever made much of a change in the consciousness of the world.