“Between you and us
a great chasm has been fixed,
so that those who might want to pass from here to you
cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.”
—Luke 16. 26
That chasm between the rich and the poor
isn’t some cosmic division.
It’s the rich man’s invention: the gate outside his house,
that hid Lazarus from him,
that kept him safe from the suffering of others.
It’s his refusal, still, to enter into Lazarus’ world,
and his refusal to receive the poor as anyone
but as servants for his own needs.
To enter into the life of the poor
is to cross the chasm—indeed, to close it.
It’s not an eternal abyss.
It’s a wound we hold in our hearts
till we choose to heal it.
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Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net