Love Begins With Us
Table Talk
Setting the Table
Welcome. There is room for you here. Come carrying whatever this day has placed in your hands—joy or weariness, hope or heaviness, clarity or uncertainty. Take a few slow breaths. Set aside what can wait. Allow this moment to hold you as you are, without expectation or hurry.
Even the smallest act of love — a pause, a glance, an outreached hand — quietly reshapes the world around us.
HELPED are those who find the courage to do at least one small thing each day to help the existence of another--plant, animal, river, or human being.
– Alice Walker
What we need is to love without getting tired. How does a lamp burn? Through the continuous input of small drops of oil. What are these drops of oil in our lamps? They are the small things of daily life: faithfulness, small words of kindness, a thought for others, our way of being silent, of looking, of speaking, and of acting.
– Mother Teresa
1 John 3.18
Let us not love with words or speech but with action and truth.
Food for Thought
It is a foggy and rainy morning here, the kind of morning that makes you want to stay cozied up in your pajamas with a warm cup of coffee in your hands. But that is not how these mornings go. You cannot stay cozy on the couch when there are children to hurry and herd in the direction of eating breakfast, brushing teeth, and getting out the door to school. So out into the dreary chill I went.
After seeing my kids off to school, making certain that all bags and water bottles made it out of my car, I detoured over to the church to check in on a few things and to grab my computer cord from where it stays plugged up in my office. As I pulled into our parking lot, I noticed a friend walking around the front yard of the church with a trash bag in hand. It took a moment to understand what was happening, but as I looked closer, it appeared that a trash bag had come apart while traveling down the street and the remnants were scattered across our lawn.
My friend — who had also just dropped their children off at school — saw the debris while passing by and stopped to begin cleaning up the mess.
On this chilly, overcast morning, when I wanted nothing more than to crawl back under the throw on my couch for just a few minutes longer, my friend was walking intentionally from piece of trash to piece of trash — offering themself in love and friendship to this patch of earth, to that small college neighborhood, to our community of faith.
This week, we entered into the season of Lent. During Lent, we consider who we are in connection with God and each other. We look honestly at our finitude — our mortality and limitedness. And we look again at our belovedness and our potential.
It would have been easy for my friend not to notice — to keep driving on to their next appointment. Perhaps they too wished the fog would lift before stepping fully into the day. But they chose instead to stop and to help.
They did not hurry past or assume someone else would take care of it.
Instead, they traded hurry for attention, and did what little bit they could to make a difference in the world around them.
It is easy to believe that love only counts when it is grand and noticeable. But again and again, we learn that love is most often embodied in small, seemingly insignificant ways — a text sent, an apology offered, a hand extended, a moment of listening when it would be easier to move on.
Lent is about turning our attention — back to God, back to one another, back to the ways our lives carry love into the world.
This morning, love began with attention.
Someone saw what was needed.
Someone cared enough to bend down.
As if that piece of earth mattered to them.
As if that neighborhood was theirs to tend.
As if they belonged to this world — and this world to them.
Lent asks us this deeper question:
Do we see ourselves as belonging — to God, to one another, to this world?
Because when we forget that we belong, we pass by.
We hurry.
We assume it is someone else’s responsibility.
But love rarely begins somewhere else.
Love begins with us.
It begins in the small decision to stop.
In the quiet choice to notice.
In the willingness to bend down.
When we remember that we are held in relationship —
finite creatures sustained by grace —
we begin to live with intention.
We are people called to live our finite lives in ways that bless this world with love — dust and breath, limited and beloved, all of it held by God.
This means living aware.
Aware that our choices matter.
Aware that our neglect matters.
Aware that our kindness matters.
Aware that love must begin somewhere.
And by the grace of God, it begins with us — even on foggy mornings, when we would rather stay inside.
Take a walk and pay close attention to your surroundings. Notice what needs care, what is overlooked, or what brings joy. Sketch or journal about what you see, and reflect on where attention could become action.
Take intentional time away from devices to notice your community, neighborhood, or surroundings. Pay attention to the people in your life — neighbors, family, friends — and reflect on the ways you can give them your full attention, free from distraction. Maybe play a game of Table Talk together.
For a printable version of today's reflection Click Here!
Blessing
God of love and attention,
Remind us this season that we are both dust and breath, finite and beloved. Slow our pace, that we might not hurry past the needs of our world. Guide our gaze, that we might see the places where love — even in small acts — can make a difference. Keep us aware that the love we seek for our hurting world very well might begin with us.
Amen.
A little Table Talk for your table...
What in your daily life often goes unnoticed, but could benefit from your attention?
In what ways do you feel you belong — to God, to your community, or to the world?
Lent asks us to slow down, pay attention, and live purposefully. What does that look like in your life today?
Try taking it to the Kids Table...
What are some things around you — at home, at school, or in your neighborhood — that people might not always see? How could you help take care of them or pay attention to them?
Where do you feel like you belong — in your family, with friends, at church, or in your neighborhood? How does it feel to be part of those places?
Lent is a time to slow down and notice what is happening around us. What is one thing you could do this week to show love or care for someone or something?
Meet This WEek’s Writer...
Lin Story-Bunce is a North Carolina native and lovingly calls Greensboro, NC home. She earned a Masters of Divinity from Wake Forest University and has served a wonderful and thoughtful congregation at College Park Baptist Church since 2009, pastoring to families and their faith development. Most of all, Lin loves the moments she gets to connect with her family, snowboarding with her wife, and keeping up with their four kiddos and two energetic pups. Lin is a teacher, preacher, dreamer, and procrastinator who has a knack for trying to do way too many things in far too little time.
To hear more from Lin throughout the week, follow along on our Instagram!