March 3, 2026
Carl Sandburg’s book of poetry, The People, Yes, published in 1936, is a collection of folk wisdom. Sandburg takes these nuggets of folk wisdom and sayings that he has gathered over the years and weaves poetry around them and celebrates the everyday people who do most of the living and loving and dying every day. I recommend it.
We are constantly drawn to ‘great’ people, ‘influencers’, these human magnets we place too close to our compasses. It is too bad we do that because we have in our midst the wisdom and work ethic we need to do just about anything. It took me a long time to realize that these ‘great’ people and ‘influencers’ live in constant dread of no longer being relevant. Wars are started by the ‘great.’ What if the rabble, the hard-working everyday wise simply decided that “NO! We would rather love.” Jesus spent his time with the rabble, with the hard working and the humane. We have soap operas called The Bold and the Beautiful, The Young and the Restless, Another World, about rich entitled people with so much free time they sin out of pure boredom. There are no soap operas called The Hard Working and the Humane.
Jesus came to show that everyday people are blessed.
Let Us Pray: Father in Heaven, we thank you for the everyday people and the everyday skills that make life in community possible. Free us from discontent and help us appreciate the fabric that makes community possible. In Jesus’s Name, Amen.