Who is in your cloud?

Recently I attended an awards ceremony where all three recipients made reference to the importance of having other people in their lives who set examples and kept them focused on the common good.

After the ceremony I got to thinking how these examples equated to the 'vast cloud (or crowd) of witnesses' that Paul writes about in Hebrews (11th chapter).

Spiritually speaking, Paul writes about how important it is to remember that "we are surrounded by a huge crowd of witnesses." (Hebrews 12.1) For Paul, this 'huge crowd' included Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Issac, Jacob, and Rahab among others.

The importance of having such witnesses, says Paul, is that it keeps us strongly connected to "the life of faith" (Hebrews 12.1)

This connection serves a multitude of purposes. Among them are staying connected to sources of encouragement, wisdom and grace.

Thousands of years past the time of Paul, our culture may have changed significantly. But the social fabric that keeps our culture together hasn't.

We still need examples of those who have gone before us. We still need a family that feeds our soul. We still need a connection to a 'cloud of witnesses.'

And I'm wondering, who is in your cloud? Who is watching over you?

Who has guided you in your journey thus far? Who sets the example that you follow?

You might think that these are questions that only children or youth need to consider.

But I would suggest that its importance never ceases, because if we aren't following someone's example, we are probably setting one for someone else. And we can only lead to the extent that we have been led.

This is indeed powerful stuff.

For example, there have been hundreds of studies that point to the fact that those who are abused are very likely to become abusers themselves.

In part, the rate of recidivism among those who have been incarcerated is high because, while incarcerated, prisoners are surrounded by other prisoners with very few positive examples of how to re-direct their life.

So it isn't only the young who need to choose their friends carefully.

But even if our friends should come up lacking, it's encouraging to know that we can draw inspiration from those who have gone before us.

Your 'cloud of witnesses' can be any of your spiritual sisters and brothers.

In taking this view, I would offer that among my witness cloud are Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa, Dan Berrigan, Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert Kennedy, Jane Addams, Steve Biko, Nelson & Winnie Mandela, Marian Wright Edelman, Bryan Stevenson, Jeremy Courtney and Malala Yousafzai.

While most of these folks have passed on, some have not. Most of these individuals achieved their status as adults, but some, like Malala Yousafzai, who received the Nobel Peace Prize when 17 years of age, were quite young.

What does this 'cloud of witnesses' have in common?

. They were firmly focused on the common good, often at the risk of their own lives
. They helped initiate major social change
. They gave sacrificially, often with little material reward
. They were spiritually grounded
. They were not influenced by their culture's definition of 'success'

I encourage all of us to spend some time asking, who is in your 'cloud of witnesses'? What do they have in common?

And let's regularly ask: Who is watching over you?

Photo credit: www.saintjohnwellesley.org