By Pastor Rod Anderson

Writing this column before Valentine’s Day, but knowing you’ll be reading the day after, has me wishing there were more days to Valentine’s! There are 12 days of Christmas and Easter is celebrated in worship the first day of every week all year and even Thanksgiving Day generates one of the longest, most traveled and celebrated weekends of the year. But Valentine’s, whether it falls in the middle of the week or on the weekend stands alone, and even lonely, as only one day … and we need more! In a world of hurt, O lord, give us more Valentine’s Days!

And hearing that prayer, I believe, God gives us Lent! Here we are in these days between Valentine’s and Lent in a world hungering, so we are called to feed it. PROP (People Reaching out to Other People), emergency food shelf gathers for its annual meeting next week reporting a 17 percent increase in requests for assistance in a time of hunger! Meanwhile the food shelves are empty … the cupboard is bare, or barely stocked. Additionally the PROPShop initiative is still looking for a way to move forward.

Here we are between Valentine’s and Lent in a world broken, so we are called to make it whole! Broken relationships between people and nations, all yearning to find ways through differences and decisions that somehow capture a little bit of the “oneness” of which the scriptures speak … a “oneness” that is common even in the holy writ of differing and warring world religions.

Here we are in the days between Valentine’s and Lent in a world hurting, so we are called to heal it! The “cancers” of our day are insidious, along with every disease imaginable cropping up and popping up in spite of the greatest medical advances in the history of the world and the most expensive medical systems held accountable. Modern medicine and old-fashioned prayer come together to do their holy work, but it will be never-ending work!

Here we are in the days between Valentine’s and Lent in a world of need, so we are called to fill that need! We hear the biblical injunction that the poor will always be with us, but we’d like to believe all could get a job and none would sleep under bridges in below-zero temperatures, or any kind of weather. No matter what your political or economic persuasion, this is still a needy world! Our retired Bishop Herb Chilstrom used to speak about driving to his downtown office every day wearing “blinders” … those sound barrier walls along 35W blocking from view the poverty of neighborhoods once thriving.

Come quickly, Lent, to help us embrace a suffering world inspired by the suffering, saving One!

Rev. Dr. Robert Schuller used to simplify their church’s vision and mission statement: “Find a hurt and heal it, find a need and fill it!” I like that in these in-between days!

 “Barefoot in the Park” is the Eden Prairie Players community theater production for these in-between days remaining in February. They’ve asked Father Patrick Kennedy of Pax Christi and myself to take cameo roles as an encouragement for you to attend – but more than that – bring a food donation for PROP when you come! Great idea! Come and bring!

Maybe the title should have been changed to “Barefoot on the Prairie” because, at least figuratively, some still are, even in our town.

The Rev. Rod Anderson shares this column with the Revs. Timothy A. Johnson and Tim Power as well as spiritual writers Dr. Bernard E. Johnson and Lauren Carlson-Vohs. “Spiritually Speaking” appears weekly.