David,
A personal thanks for the poem. I had to memorize it in ninth or tenth grade English, at which time I thought it offered me a measure of security. I had no religious training to speak of in my parents' home.
After accepting Jesus Christ at age 20, and having tried to live a Christian life for the following 18 years, I gradually fell away from my faith, and once again tried to take solace from the idea that I may not love the Lord, but Iwas kindly disposed toward my fellow man & therefore God would be merciful toward me.
I am a slow learner, and have spent a long time finding out that once the Lord receives a person, He never lets him go. I abandoned Him, but He never abandoned me. It was, in fact, this very BB that was instrumental in leading me back to Christ and helping me to realize that even in my seemingly agnostic/humanistic wanderings God was teaching me about Himself.
How foolish to believe that I ever had within myself the capacity to love my fellows apart from God's purposeful enabling, and yet at the time that was the best concept I had & it seemed valid to me. So I still have a soft spot in my heart (or perhaps it's in my head
) for poor ol' Abou, because I once was he. (Ben Adhem translates roughly as "son of man" or "son of earth".)
Anyway, thanks for sharing him here, & stick around: the adventure is afoot!
al
