When I was little, our family would drive along some roads on the farm where both sides dropped away dramatically. I remember looking out the window, wondering how on earth it was that we didn't go tumbling down. . . . Life has edges. Children bump up against them all the time as they make meaning and sense for themselves, as they determine what life, death and everything in between is about. As a parent, they create edges for us too. Our adult self, needs a certain kind of awareness and strength to ride the road that comes with parenting. As a minister, I sit with others who are on their edges, and sometimes I find my own. Recognising the edges can take some insight, and sometimes we don't know we are there, unless someone helps us. Finding our way back from the edges can be just as tricky. Sometimes we need the help of others. They can't do it for us, we have to learn to trust our own capacity and response, as they give some guidance. |
As my Dad drove the family car across the narrow roads with dropping edges, I learnt to trust his driving in those circumstances. I have had to learn to trust myself, to trust others, and trust God in those edge moments of life too. Those learnings have become gifts for others, as they seek out their pathways and learn to trust too. My children included . . . .
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Perhaps the water is more the image of the potential of God's peace in our lives - if we as rocks got out of the way of the water, then it might be present and real to us. What if the shape of who we are, gives shape to what others see as God's peace in our lives, and the raging we cause gives others a skewed sense of what God's peace really is. . . . .
Perhaps sometimes it is the rock, perhaps sometimes it is the water . . . .
I wonder if we have become servants of regulations, instead of regulations being our servant?
I wonder . . . . and I pray. I watch the unconstrained play of children, open to possibilities, living beyond rules, expectations, processes and paperwork . . . . simply. I think there was something about becoming like children . . . . . and following Jesus. . . . |
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