Advent Day 16: Our True Height In Love

*photo above: kids at last night’s Toy Give at NWLife – over 400 children received Christmas gifts

Father Greg Boyle tells the story of a homie named Fili and a volunteer at Homeboy Industries named Ms. June…

One of our tutors at Homeboy, Ms. June, is managing a roomful of students, whom she is teaching to fill out forms. She is a tiny Japanese American woman, a retired teacher who volunteers once a week helping homies on their literacy skills.

One of the many homies she’s working with is named Fili.

When the form asks for his height, he doesn’t know how to answer; confined to a wheelchair by gun violence, he is about three feet sitting upright. Ms. June asks him to extend his arms wide. She measures him from fingertip to fingertip.

“You’re six feet tall,” she tells him matter-of-factly. I, for one, never knew arm span equaled height. For our true height in love, it seems, is measured in how expansively we can outstretch our arms, with generosity and love.

 Our true height in love… is measured by how expansively we can outstretch our arms, with generosity and love.