“If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives: Be kind anyway. If you are successful you will win some false friends and true enemies: Succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank people will try to cheat you: Be honest anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight: Build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous of you: Be happy anyway. The good you do today, will often be forgotten by tomorrow: Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough: Give your best anyway.” ~ Mother Teresa

Lesson #1 There is no greater hunger than the hunger of the heart.

Here the  lesson is one of deep meaning. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty — it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There’s a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.”

Lesson #2 Loneliness is the leprosy of the modern world.

School was the ultimate breeding ground for friendships. You were with people of the same age, who most likely had the same interests, and you met with each other consistently over a long period of time. All these factors put together helped lay the foundation that facilitated the forging of strong friendships.

But then after high school and college, most people started to go their own separate ways. They moved on to new cities and jobs, some to other countries, while others got married and started their own families, and all those factors that helped make friends in the past were seemingly pulled out from under the rug.

And then the full impact of loneliness started to sink in.

Even though you were surrounded by so many people, you still felt lonely in the sense that you didn’t have many people you could truly confide in. For most people, the only person they could truly confide in was their spouse Technology has also provided us with our own personal entertainment which allows us to easily trap ourselves in own little bubbles, oblivious to the world around us. Walk down any urban city and you’ll see the all too familiar white earphones in people’s ears as they nod their head to the beat of the music on their Ipod. People are constantly plugged in.

We don’t live alone. We need each other. We need to embrace each other.  We need to be the hands and feet of hospitality and  kindness. Smile at someone. Say good morning. Don’t just exist. Live.

Mother Teresa spent her life touching the unwanted.The story of Mother Teresa’s life is no mere humanitarian exploit, as she would be the first to declare. It is a story of biblical faith. It can only be explained as a proclamation of Jesus Christ by – in her own words – “loving and serving Him in the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor, both materially and spiritually, recognizing in them and restoring to them the image and likeness of God”

When we pass it each other by and do nothing we are not honoring the creation we are.