God speaking to me through another human being doesn't necessarily come to mind as someone actually speaking to me, but rather I have been changed by observing some rather "saintly" behaviours in others. Oddly enough, none of the people that come to mind, probably haven't any idea that they have profoundly impacted me in the way that they live out Christs teachings. It's quite astonishing to witness when there are no pretentious instructions or sermons on how to live ones life other than the a living example of Christ's Way demonstrated by the lives of those who claim it.

When I observe their lives, I think.... I want that too. They make me want to try to be a better person.

For me, it's often been in humbling experiences of hospitality. For a good number of years, I was visiting various parts of Europe documenting bagpiping and music traditions, often meeting with people whose lives were embedded in their traditional cultures. Often these people were quite poor. Often, they were speakers of minority languages and, often, we communicated with difficulty.

And often I had no choice but to stay in their homes, and we would cimmunicate through scattered bits of imperfectly known languages in common, gesture, drawings, demonstration and teenage translaters who'd lerarned a bit of English in school.

To taste a very different culture in such ways, to receive hospitality from such people, to laugh and sing and spend tome with such people, to eat their foods their ways and drink their drinks their way, was often a deeply affecting revelation of goodness, generousity and indomitable humanity. I think of such encounters in Galicia, Italy, the Baltic states, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria… with minorities within these countries, including Islamic Roma, displaced Sudeten Czechs and Russians, legally stateless Belarusians… people with extraordinary histories, extreme experiences, rich traditions, deep insights and remarkable faith who've enlarged my spirit in all sorts of ways.

God has spoken to me through Wondercafe.........

I  came upon this site  when I was first widowed - and still at the stage of knowing I needed to open myself up to socialising more - but lacking the will and courage.

Wondercafe was a perfect fit - it gave me control over when I wanted to interact or not. Besides, I could remain in the comfort of my own home and I didn't have to worry about clothes, appearance etc.

With time, I grew curious about this place called Canada and wanted to see it for myself.......

Problem was, I had relied on my husband when it came to arranging travel - my expertise was in packing our bags. And to travel by myself????

On this occasion God spoke to me through LBmuskoka.

She took the trouble to send me this quote attributed to Anais Nin -

"There comes a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

I got on that plane - and the quote stays with me.........

I think that's how you know that it's Godde talking to you. When the words zing to your heart and stay there, feeling right, if not necessarily comfortable.

In my experience, Godde's very not about comfortable, which makes my very dominant Inner Control Freak very uncomfortable. *grins*

On a more serious note, I had one of those deep conversations that I'll never forget with my daughter, in a car, in a raging snowstorm. It was as if there were only two of us in the world, and the rest of the world was just a big white hole.

I have gone through a lot in the past 4 years and knowing that God has been with me every step of the way helps a lot in getting me through everything. Does God suffer with me? I don't believe so I believe that God understands everything I am going through and walks with me. The "suffering" I have had to  has only made me stronger and more in tune with others around me who are also going through hard times. I am thank ful for that.

The future . . . I am afraid that it will hold something I can't handle.  I am afraid it will hold something someone I love can't handle.  Faithful Action - I try and remember the saying "Lord, help me to remember that nothing is going to happen today that you and I can't handle together." This works well for me, but when I think of a specific loved one, and her care when I am gone, I have a harder time not being fearful - for her.  I try to hold her in the same space and care of God that I hold myself, but it isn't easy.  My fear can give birth to faithful action by not giving into it . . . but rather holding and proclaiming trust in God to be there.

Since a powerful experience when I was 18 — it felt like a flying apart (or being pulled apart) into the universe and a re-formation of around the changed core of my self (I describe it in my profile) — I've had neither fears nor nightmares.

It wasn't something I understood as "religious" at the time (I was an atheist) but it has been fairly central to my growth into "Christianity" so fear has no place in my faith. Rather the empowerment of faith, for me, arises from the inimacy I feel with a constantly moving, changing, ductile, fluid, unprectable universe and the place of others within that. So few enjoy the "ride", so many are damaged by others who fear the inescapable changes of which the privilege of consciousness makes us aware. 

It's fear, I think, that drives most impulses of possession, of control, of selfishness, of competitiveness, of self-image and identity management… it's that existential fear of impermanence and unpedictability that impels so much squabbling among us.

So I feel I've been gifted to try to quieten fears I find around me… I tend to see that as my faith in action. And Christianity gives so many assurances that should help us to embrace the mysteries of a consciousnes that's been released in an amazing, thrilling, beautiful torrent of existence: we should be at play in its midst, not huddling in fright. Each of us has our own unique experience of it all and our own unique purpose in the ways we can live and journey here FOR each other, not DESPITE each other. 

We're like plants in our growing, blooming, bearing fruit and dying… but, like porpoises and antelope, we can run, chase, play and dance. And we have minds, intellects, intelligence and languages that that we MUST apply to existence as a vital responsibility. And we mustn't let fear turn us into shade and safety-seeking creatures like moles.

I'm working on a nine-month cross-cultural Christmas project I hope — we hope — will help our community find a refreshed engagement with the Christmas story and season… and rekindle hope and energy in our lives. (I'll post photos when it happens…)

The following are some of the lyrics to Steve Bell's song "Kindness" on his "Kindness" CD - words are by Brian McLaren.

Christ has no body here but ours
No hands no feet here on earth but ours.
Ours are the eyes through which he looks
On this world with kindness

Ours are the hands through which he works
Ours are the feet on which he moves
Ours are the voices through which he speaks
To this world with kindness

Through our touch, our smile, our listening ear
Embodied in us, Jesus is living here

Practical way to prepare a way for God in my community - through love . . . and carrying out the love in action.

I think we can pave a way by living a fruilful life in God and letting others see that we walk with God. Perhaps someone will ask why and you will be able to discuss it.

I want very much to help take our congregation out into the community we serve. There is a high school just down the road. Hundreds of kids pass the church daily on the way to a plaza. A few years ago, we had a very popular biweekly lunch (soup & stuff) with a discussion led by our past youth leader (not 'church'-y, but current events, ethical issues that were bothering the kids, etc.). We currently have a part-time youth leader who would not be the right person to lead this. I'd really like to find the right group to help me to re-establish that lunch series. This would prepare a way for Godde in our neighbourhood.

Day 15: Friday | I Remember What Hope Is

Hope looks reality straight in the eye and dares to think that things can change. It is the cutting edge for a change to occur in our heart and the knowledge that we do not have to stay in the realm of dispair. Hope is not a childish optimism that disregards the grave circumstances that surround us, but rather acknowledges the facts while searching for the light that will lead us out of it.

Whenever I feel compelled to dwell and remain in an overwhelming grief there is only one word that can pull me out......hope, which is often synonomous with trust. I trust that I am not meant to remain in dispair and that while God may require me to walk through the valley, He does not want me to remain there.

A scroll certainly has metaphorical value. It's a fascination that pre-dates writing:

viz. Spiral "scroll" forms cut into stone at Newgrange (Neolitihc) more than 5,000 years ago… many, many early peoples made such designs… 

Llife's not one narrative, but scores of interwoven narratives, bound together and interacting together; some fade and later strengthen, few (rarely the most interesting) last the whole distance. The past is most certainly not closed to us… it lives on wirhin us and can be formed one way or another, like a lump of clay on the postter's wheel, or the diversion of a river… life's an indivisible flow, it does not stop, it is not segmented.

One of our life’s narratives seldom develops without also engaging most of the rest. Life is largely played out in metaphysical experience where narrative clarity is elusive; with no simple, direct cause-and-effect, action-consequence relationships. Fulfillment is often partial or qualified; multiple causes produce whole sets of direct effects, as do single causes.

Life has warps and wefts but they can exchange places. Life has less logic to it that we’d like. In large ways we’re undiscerning, foibles-ridden creatures of incomprehension; we rarely see our own greatest accomplishments, our failures, our insights or blind spots, far less those of others. Most of what we “know” is we think best suits us, rather than it is the fruit of deep open-ness to experience. We are as good at blatant denial as we are of humble acceptance… but future and past can and do interact in the life of a soul.

The ancients expressed this in scroll-like spirals and labyrinths

So a scroll: a scroll rolled, perhaps, in the form of multiply-spliced Orowan loops and Moebius strips?… or more like this:

trna mollecule: helical stacking

Unfolding fern frond forms

18th century Maori facial tattoo

New Zealand's unofficial "koru" flag.

… interesting question.