Sunday June 26: Plough the Furrow of Love

[link to full email]: https://mailchi.mp/coutreach/word-of-the-week-june26

[excerpt from email]: Practice: Tom Wright poses the question: Where is Jesus asking us to travel not yesterday but tomorrow? As you contemplate Jesus’ message of nonviolence reflected in these passages, how might you begin to answer this question for your life moving forward?  Is there a small and practical way that everyday violence – rudeness to a clerk or telemarketer, a sharp reply to a friend or loved one, ongoing criticism directed at another – can be transformed through a practice of patience and gentleness?

When the baristas at Starbucks or Aroma Joes drive-thru greet me with a smile and a pleasant demeanor, it makes my day a little better.  Waitpersons indoors could do thst too before Covid started keeping us out of restaurants.

So I always give these people a generous tip and they always seem surprised –

 

I try to remember to remind myself that “God is in her/him/them too” in each encounter (this does not always happen it’s a work in progress).

Several years ago I learnt a valuable lesson when I started speaking regularly to a young woman, Rebecca, from Eastern Europe, who sells The Big Issue.
(For our non-British friends this is the magazine which homeless people buy from the organisers and then sell on at a small profit.  It’s founder describes supporting them in this way as “giving a hand up not a hand out”.  It’s usually good journalism too!)  One day I asked Rebecca what was the hardest thing about selling this mag on the streets,  she replied “when people do not even look at you – you start to feel you are nothing”.   Rebecca went on to say that it’s not necessarily about them buying the mag but about recognising her as a fellow-human being.

Sunday June 26: Plough the Furrow of Love

Where is Jesus asking me to travel not yesterday but tomorrow? Jesus asks first for me to stop the violent inner dialogue directed at myself, and to daily embrace His grace. Freely I accept, freely I disperse that grace imperfectly around my life. I try to smile, sometimes I cannot. I try to lift up, sometimes I chip away at another. I am forgiven, and am sent back out, not to call fire down from heaven but to plead grace like rain fall on all creation. Lord, hear my prayer. <3 linda

As I was making my bed it struck me how doing ordinary things, the things I’m supposed to do each day, is God-like. This ensued, in poetic prose, due to format issues.

God Is

The farmer, the baker, the housekeeper, the maid, the people behind counters and cash registers and all human service jobs. The dishwashers, launderers, lawn keepers and gardeners. The plumbers, tailors, scientists, computer programmers, garbage disposal people, ditch diggers and the dead. Taxi drivers, Uber drivers, pizza and grub-hub delivery people. Nurses, doctors, hospital and home health aides and the sick & elderly who depend on them. Mathematicians, politicians, theologians, mystics, soothsayers, naysayers, baseball players and worms. In Cyberspace, outer space, inner space and green space. And pets, even pet rocks. In music, thunder, noise and the roar of silence. In baby’s cries, bowties, insufferable heat and air conditioning. In quarks, molecules, atoms and matter.

God is – creator, sustainer, maintainer, redeemer of all life, seen and unseen. The cosmos, the universe, the multiverse, bad verse and vice versa.

God is more me than I am.

After I read Brenda’s post, I stopped where a man was standing by the street asking for money, with a homeless sign.

Inatead if driving by, I told him I couldn’t help him now (end of the month and AC won’t work) but maybe next week I could. He thanked me and I drove on.

Bless you Tim; stopping to speak to that man was a kind thing to do.  In my experience people usually appreciate it.

Well your post inspired thst!

rifht now prayers for son in law Ernie – in so much pain be spent are the point  of living

Prayers for Ernie, Tim.

“The Kingdom of God requires a world organized …..around love and compassion.” You are probably aware Pope Francis is coming to Canada July 24-29 to continue his walk with our Indigenous people, another step in  apology…. along the path of truth and reconciliation. The Canadian Church has “put a hand on the plough” moving forward,  step by step,  painful step by painful step. Pope Francis’ painful knee is very symbolic. If you are interested, “Living with Christ” is creating a free exclusive digital edition, praying these days as they unfold: http://www.living with Christ.ca/Pope.

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