I went early to hear Stephen Lewis. I knew the place would be full. The tickets had been sold out for some time. Division Street Church probably seats about 800 people, downstairs and in the balcony. I found a spot mid-way down the aisle, on the left where I could hear. I sit close to speakers these days. The church began to fill with people of all ages. Not the usual cotton tops that attend the symphony and the churches in town, but a gathering of folks of all ages. There were teens and college kids, young pre-teens and middle-aged couples. And of course, plenty of those of us who have been around the barn a time or two, as they used to say.

I was curious to know who was coming. There were a lot of young women seated around me. (It happens.) Handsome women. Excited and articulate. Talking with each other front and back. I wondered if they were teachers from town or an organization like the University Women's Club. They were obviously friends. Mothers of young children. I later learned they were from Collingwood. They had chalets there but lived and worked in Kitchener. They were open, friendly, but busy with each other, busy with life, family and professions.

Folks came in who were unaccustomed to being in a church. Some didn't remove their caps. Just didn't know. Others bounced around like they were in the community hall; strangers to these sacred walls. Arching above us, the beautiful stained glass windows, and the soft light of this prayerful place seemed far removed from those who do not kneel. Some were awkward and quieted by the sanctuary. "Sanctuary," a safe place, a holy place. A place where the hearts of people have whispered their deepest. A place where tears of brides and mourners alike have drenched the carpet. The old hardwood floors and the silent walls have hidden the yearnings of generation after generation.

This night the church seemed like a tolerant elder, welcoming those who did not know the ghost, the angel that dwells there. As the auditorium filled, some folks were ushered into the choir loft behind the pulpit. Strangers to those chairs, they looked out on the gathering with wide, puzzled eyes as the ones above in the balcony looked down on us. No seats left. No more room. Standing room only. It was time to start.

Stephen Lewis was touched by being in the presence of the sacred. He referred to the angel of the cathedral, the Spirit that lived there and the arms that gathered and held us there. He softened his voice in reverence as though the grave tragedies he came to speak of took on an additional proportion in the presence of the Holy. He was no stranger to this Spirit. He was at home. He was, in a way, set free to cry out more passionately about the abuse of human life, the endless deaths, the needless waste of persons. Stephen Lewis cried out of a deep anguish that was not just his own. We heard Stephen Lewis and we heard the agony of God about the children, the women and the young men. There was a sorrow in our midst beyond our own.

The well dressed women around me understood the suffering of the young girls in Africa. The moms and grandmothers ached with the sadness of a country being devastated by HIV/Aids. We could not really take it all in. It was too much. The statistics were mind-boggling. More than the Black Death which took half the population of Europe. More than two World Wars. More deaths than we can imagine. More orphaned children than we have ever thought. Villages and entire generations erased as though they had never been there. Only old people and little children left. There is a stunned silence in so much suffering. We hear but do not see the soil soaked in human blood, diseased blood.

We want to do something. We want to be a part of the little bits of hope that are springing up. We are action people. We believe in the power of money. We know money will do what needs to be done. We know the lack of money is behind the devastation. We know somehow money is the issue. That is because we cannot take in the sorrow of those people who stagger in the wind, blowing the dust of the dead in fine silt clouds. Because we have become economic beings, we respond with what we believe empowers: money.

About $20,000 was raised that night. More to come. Some countries are beginning to send more because Stephen Lewis has been out telling the story. We promised more money. And we will give it. To UNICEF, Doctors Without Borders, Canadian Save the Children Fund and others. We will be more generous people, wounded by the stories of Stephen Lewis.

Stephen Lewis kept telling us that the crisis was deeper than money. He kept saying it was about our racism. We don't think that the thousands of deaths of black people, primitive people, is urgent news. He said it was about women. About the abuse of women. It was about the fact that black women don't have the right to protect themselves. They are not quite persons. We are not too far out of those shadows ourselves.

He said it was about sex. Not all HIV/Aids is spread by sexual contact. Some was blood born. Blood for healing, blood for hospitals. But we are a people who are sex-obsessed and haven't yet learned how to respect one another. And he said it was about children. About not valuing the lives of children. They are cute and sometimes tragic figures, but we don't quite get it that children are wandering, caring for each other, exploited or left to elders in the villages to feed and care for them.

So the pandemic, the epidemic is about money and the World Bank, but more he said, looking up at the angel of the vaulted ceilings, sensing the Spirit that surrounded him, it is about how we care for one another. It is the cry for human decency in our earthly neighbourhood. Our neighbourhood is full of violence. We have to lock our doors at night. We are witnessing the collapse of the highest of human hopes and values. Our neighbors are crying all night while we sleep. Like the farm down the road from us, they have been burned out and need someone to put on a dance to help them out, to show our solidarity with them.

Three or four times we rose to our feet to applaud and to shout encouragement to Stephen Lewis. He embodied the very depth of human compassion that is needed to make this world a welcoming and safe place for all people. He is the good neighbour.

We cannot just admire Stephen Lewis and drop in our spare change. He has called us to reverence for life. For compassion that will heal our lonesomeness. He has called us to suffer with the One who has seen centuries of human agony and to work with that Spirit to mend the earth, and in doing that to heal ourselves.