Increase and Decrease

After this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he spent some time there with them and baptized. John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim because water was abundant there; and people kept coming and were being baptized—John, of course, had not yet been thrown into prison.

Now a discussion about purification arose between John’s disciples and a Jew. They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, the one who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you testified, here he is baptizing, and all are going to him.” John answered, “No one can receive anything except what has been given from heaven. You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him.’ He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.” John 3:22-30

Increase and Decrease

I lose so many  things all the time
misplacing keys and needed glasses
wandering around blindly looking
yet I never lose the ones I love.

A brief moment in a crowded shop
stopping everything to seek the one
little and curious who has taken off
love demands we decrease for others.

Stopping and slowing for the elders
lifting up and carrying the young
our brillance is not dimmed at all
when we give ourselves for others.

The birds stop singing for the rain
the mother accepts pain for the child
we are all becoming less for love
joyous every more day by day.