Interesting thoughts from Ron Glusenkamp – that Advent can be a season for spiritual U-turns, as we stop running away and head towards God… as we crash and burn without God… after some of the conversations that were inevitable whilst in Winchester (are you coming back? being the most frequent one) I still feel that I’m where God wants me to be, though it’s not always easy!
Maggi Dawn’s Beginnings and Endings also deals with a journey – a nomadic journey without any clear ending. For Isaac and his people “Their job was to pick up the vision, carry it on and then hand it over to the next generation.” Something which we may have to accept in a culture which threatens to subsume us.
Isaac might be able to teach us something here. He didn’t pick a fight with the surrounding culture, but neither did he allow it to subsume him. He continued to dig in all the places his father had taught him until he found a place that he could peacefully occupy, a place that his hostile neighbours did not steal from him.
Following on from yesterday, we get the sense of building upon the strong lessons from the past, rather than a feeling that we need to start from scratch (and I definitely feel that with the digital spaces) as we hold onto God’s promises. I also really like the idea that there is room in the world for those who have different points of view – and that we can disagree without becoming combative (oh, if only we could see more of this online!)
There’s a great challenge from @briandraper today – to stop trying to capture everything that is around us (through a camera) lens and just BE a part of something! That was certainly something that several of the exhibits at Lumber encouraged recently – especially within the Cathedral with “fireflies” – one just had to sit in a pew and be there!
