Leonie Work Luterman
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If
you go to the seaside you'd be surprised by the ever increasing number
of buoys you see. Buoys of all shapes and sizes, from little plastic
containers to the very big ones. They all have the same function -
tied with a rope to a stone or some other heavy object cast at the
bottom of the sea, they ensure that the boats moored to them remain at
their place, in spite of the movements of the waves or storms.
One
will not possess a boat for long if it is not secured to a buoy -
unless of course one leaves it in a garage! And what possible use can
it have in a garage? Its place is in the sea.
In some of our bays, if one wants to swim for some length rather than hug the shore, one ends up going from buoy to buoy.
This
is my experience every summer. But recently I was struck by a thought
as I was swimming. I said to myself: in the sea there are these buoys
which help me to rest if I get tired. But do I have any buoys in my
daily life?
When I am tired, where do I find my rest? If
worried, confused, uncertain what to do, where do I go to find
consolation? When somebody hurts me, to whom do I go for soothing
ointment? When I need advice, where do I seek it? In my life I need a
"buoy" to which to tie myself and at which I can rest.
Other
questions came to mind. When somebody is worried, hurt, needs a
listening ear, will that person find in me the "buoy" she/he needs?
For I too must be a "buoy" for others. No person can live alone, we
need each other.
Left alone, whether by personal choice or
not, a person will be just like a boat let loose at sea. With the
slightest movement of the waters, and more and more in a storm, s/he
will find her/himself smashed against the rocks of life.
Christ
must be our "buoy": "Come to me all you who are weary and overburdened
and I will give you rest." But he wants us also to be "buoys" for our
sisters and brothers: to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, be
merciful, compassionate. To love as he loved. The buoys in our waters
are ever on the increase. May there be ever more and more human "buoys", so that at last peace and true love will reign in our world.
Katie Mifsud rscj
District of Malta
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