The Rut

I

I had a dream I walked into a building.  In the center of the building was a large circular sanctuary.  It had dark wood walls with windows from waist to ceiling and two main doors in the front, which served as the entrance.  Inside I could see a group of people, dressed in white robes, facing inward singing and worshiping. 

To my surprise a little man dressed in a dusty, torn suit came out from behind the sanctuary.   He was a bit slumped over as he walked, head down, past the entrance doors and around the next corner.  How different he looked compared to the others inside. The little man returned to circle again and again until he had begun to form deep ruts in the ground. 

A man in the back of the sanctuary happened to catch a movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to see the little man walking by.  He went to stand right inside the entrance and as the little man approached he opened the door, pulled him up out of the rut and set him inside the entryway.  I could see the questions on the little man’s face as he lifted his head all the way up the clean white robe into the warm smiling eyes of the one who lifted him up.  The man motioned for him to come join the others, but the little man quickly shook his head as he grasped the front of his dusty, torn suit.  Defeated, the little man turned towards the door with all the intentions of jumping back into his rut.  But as he began to leave he felt something being wrapped around his shoulders.  He was filled with amazement as he looked at the clean white robe draped about his small frame.  The little man looked back and saw that when the man had taken off his robe, underneath he too was clothed in a dusty, torn suit.  What hadn’t changed however were the warm smiling eyes he looked up into. 

My sisters, someone once pulled you up out of your rut and set your feet inside the entryway.  It is my hope that we never get so engrossed in our own lives that we stop noticing the little ones around us.  For underneath, we are all the same.