I attended a lunch hour Lenten talk on Monday where I walked away with a few encouraging messages which I have spun into my previous learning........... here are my thoughts, woven with the Bishop's lessons............
Jesus teaches us how to be human. The Holy Spirit teaches us how to be human together. The Holy Spirit is a new breath of God's fresh air, allowing for community to develop. What is community? It is where heaven and earth overlap. It is a place of healing and wholeness, where one can feel a sense of kindred understanding and unconditional love. Community is a church without borders, where open breezes are able to move freely.
As the Bishop spoke, I visualized the Holy Spirit represented as a collection of colourful intertwining ribbons, caught in the breeze and flowing all around us. Each colour, each ribbon represents feelings of human beings.........feelings we all have an understanding of if we choose to. Some of these ribbons are shiny soft in pastel shades. Some are rough, like short cropped fur on a bear. Some have thorns that may pierce you when you touch them. Some are velvety inviting that you want to rub it on your cheek. Some are a screaming orange. Some are a dark eternal black. Some you just want to wrap all around your body for warm love.
comforting
jarring
frightening
soothing
complicated
simple
understandable
enlightening
different
common
shared with others
The Holy Spirit helps us learn to be human together by it's ever present breeze of visible and invisible ribbons.......
A sense of community, is captured when we allow ourselves to be touched by the ribbons of others.......to see their colour and make-up swirling all around in the wind.
Don' t know if anyone else at the Lenten talk walked away with THAT particular visual, but I did. It has stayed with me all week, providing a feeling of connectivity as I've gone about living my life trying to figure things out.
4 comments:
Oh, that is such a wonderful image - one that speaks to me, one that I can carry around with me, one that includes me in something of God. Thank you.
Thanks for that image... as tired as I am I will sleep on it and no doubt be dreaming of colourful ribbons, have a lovely weekend :)
I'm completely sick of hearing about religion. Muslim, Christian, whatever. A load of delusional claptrap. Your own "mythical sky buddy". Religious belief will be the death of us all in the end. After all, "if you don't believe that the blood of my redeemer was shed for your salvation, then I'll drown you in your own". Huxley was right. Humanity is a pack of fools.
Hi Caroline.....don't even know where the image derived from, but since it was a persistant one, I thought maybe it would translate well into words to share. Good to know it resonated with you too.
Hi Katie.....it has been a long tiring week on this end too. Will be in touch...... :)
Web....I like that......mythical sky buddy.......sounds like a superhero. Don't know if religious belief will be the death of us. Personally, I'm just shooting for acquiring it before I die.
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