I love this little metaphor that Jesus uses to explain that the kingdom of heaven is all around us.  Often we fail to see it.  We need to open our eyes and our hearts.  This young handicapped man, with his ability to love and to receive love unconditionally, is an example of the kingdom of heaven.   The white dove is an example of his soul being set free.  

A friend of mine told me many years ago of a walk she took in the woods shortly after her sister died.  She was brokenhearted, weighed down by sorrow.  Unable to deal with anything or anybody, even those offering their sympathy and condolences, she walked along, head down, unaware of her surroundings.  Then she looked up and saw a deer standing nearby, looking right at her.  They made eye contact, then the deer lifted itself, and with one leap disappeared into the brush.   But in that moment of contact she felt her sister's presence with her and the sorrow and weight lifted from her shoulders.    A sign.  The kingdom of heaven is all around us, like yeast in break, like a seed growing quietly, a dove doing a loop-d'-loop, or a deer letting someone get closer than is usually possible and making contact.  

Awe pulls my plug completely. Beauty, ideas and the insights of other cultures draw me in and leave me dumb. It's reflection that excites me and makes me want to speak.

And I have been drawn into organisations, movements, friendships and communities by people who've wanted "my" voice … it has to do with resonances of values, insights and energies. So I have been excluded (as you might be able to imagine) and have always managed to feel glad and at peace that I hadn't played along, just to be "in" or for the money/job/ego-boost.

I am a woman heading away from middle age. I am beginning to feel the silencing of my voice. In our western culture, men don't lose the authority of their voice in old age, but it seems that women do; that, as their attractiveness fades, so does their substance, somehow. It's very disconcerting, and it certainly explains the chaotic scramble for the Fountain of Youth. I picked up an Avon catalogue out of idle curiosity the other day, the first time in a long time. The pages offering various age-defying serums have quadrupled in number and there's fear written underneath every page.

One place where all voices are honoured is our perennially unnamed "Tuesday night group", a small Progressive Christianity study group with whom I have enjoyed food, fellowship and honest and interesting conversation for quite a few years. It is a good thing that such places exist.

God sets me free from worry, fear, etc. when I trust in him.

It is my own thoughts, attitudes, and emtoins that keep me from trusting in God, and therefore being set free.

Most of the time (sadly, I think), I'm trying to figure out ways to avoid God so I can stay entangled by the ties that bind me. Freedom can be scary and is something God is teaching to embrace over time. But I may not yet be ready.

I've often experienced Jesus in the hospitality of strangers and in unexpected friendships. Where? In a number of contries, communities and cultures… too long a list to detail here. 

God revealed to me? In unexpected circumstances? Not "god" but the presence of "godness". Originally, I suppose, yes, it was unexpected — I was an atheist, after all. But I started getting glimpses of "more" — "more" than was immediately or explicitly evident…  sometimes as a revelation of "meaning", significance or relationship. Especially while being in the sea (diving) or in the New Zealand bush (hiking) or on mountains (climbing)… 

Now, I make a priority of trying to discern god-ness in pretty much everything. I try to remain "in the presence" of god-ness.

God holds the whole of me — in pain and joy, love and disappointment — and the whole of life is always what we are… all of it seems, in the end, somehow necesssary to me. A moment of estrangement? When my first wife's mother (a very pushy German) turned up to live wit us for a while, six months after the wedding, and began encouraging her daughter to spend far more than she and I (I was a postgrad student a long way from home, my wife was working in a newsroom on typically low pay) could possibly afford and in total discord with all my values: nights betting (losing money) at the races, buying clothes including a fur coat on credit, BUYING a wretched pacer (horse), eating out… that was the marriage and my academic aspirations demolished. But I learned a lot about who and what I was and have had a far richer, fuller, more interesting life than I would have in academe (and i got to do what I really wanted as a scholar much later when a career was no longer possible outcome). It's the WHOLE of life that matters.

Elie Wiesel once said," hope without memory, is like memory without hope" He was a holocaust survivor.

It's hard to live a whole life without having some sort of crisis and anytime I've encountered such a situation whern I think I've entered the very pits of hell or even just a lukewarm version, it's God and a hope that offers me the hand that pulls me out. It's God that says, don't forget, but don't live there either.

I had a very good friend that refused to talk to me for more than 5 years, in between I made attempts to talk to her but she would have nothing to do with it. Every once in a while I would attempt to reconcile and then one day she accepted my invitation for lunch. Our conversation was stilted, we both must have subconciously agreed to not talk about the past and what started the estrangement and instead we caught each other up in our lives. For some reason enough time had passed that we didn't have to establish who was right or who was wrong, just that we missed each other terribly. As time went on we did "hash" things out, all that was needed was a willingness on both of our parts to just "let go" a little in order to recreate a different and better friendship.

We are a "dwindling" congregation.  Many members/adherents are becoming older and not able to do what they used to, either moving to personal care or to where other family live.  Many in their 60's and retiring are moving away to their retirement homes.  The 35 - 40's stop coming once their children don't want to go to Sunday School anymore, and there are very few in their 20-30's.  If this trend continues, we will be in very big trouble in about 5 years or so.

I could encourage my congregation by showing appreciation, thanksgiving, and acknowledgement to the things we do instead of the things we can no longer do, or might not be able to do down the road.  I can encourage my congregation by serving and doing where I am able to.

Part of the reason congregations are discouraged is because they are finding less people nowadays wnat to come to the traditional Sunday service which they prefer. Just because people are less attracted to that style of worship then maybe they were in the past isn't necessarily a cause to be depressed. There are lots of things a church can do to connect with new people and energy in their communities - but we have to get out of the mindset that everyone must come to a church service like we like. Let's turn it around - let's go out in the community as a church and do something that people will notice. That would be encouraging.

Day 28: Saturday | Lifting the Grey