Hard Hats and Tender Hearts

We sang prayers of longing and hope this morning, as we were reminded again of Moses and the burning bush, and the Holy Ground all around us.  Every last inch of it is holy - God is alive and at work in all life. 

But as wondrous and comforting as that is, it is also BIG.  The image from the Bible story is one of a burning bush - not a small flickering candle.  This is not a tame, domesticated image - but one that humbles the soul.  A quote from one of our texts for today says it all:

"On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions.  Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke?  Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it?  The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning.  It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets.  Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews.  For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return." Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters (New York: Harper and Row, 1982) 40-41, as quoted by Elisabeth Liebert, "Supervision as Widening the Circle," in Supervision of Spiritual Directors, Engaging in Holy Mystery, edited by Mary Rose Bumpus and Rebecca Bradburn Langer, (PA: Morehouse Publishing, 2005) 126.

Power - Fire - Transformation - Call - Not tame stuff!  So it was perfectly appropriate that the area around the chancel in the chapel was decorated with a Warning sign, hard hats and orange cones - an encounter with the Living God can change one forever!  Enter at your own risk!

I encountered a new model in class this morning that will be very helpful with the Boise First visioning process - and also got to hear the role of the Holy Spirit described through the music of Bach and John Coltrane (I don't remember my MDiv being this much fun - there certainly wasn't any Coltrane ).  The afternoon small group session was another living, breathing example of what people committed to a path of love and compassion can do when they work together in service of God and another.  My heart continues to be broken open by the love here - I watched colleagues working as angels today in holy and tender work.  My belief in the power of ministry is being replenished with each encounter.

And I could be a part of that experience this afternoon because I could park my car.  Remember the parking space conundrum from an earlier post (only 29 parking spaces needed on top of the hill, and only two on any given day).  Well by the grace of God there has been a parking space each day, morning and afternoon, which allows me to get to class:

The little red Fiesta is my  mode of transportation, and this is a picture of it parked in the only parking spot available today when I came up the hill for the afternoon class.  And to you know why that parking space was available?

That was my gift of grace, left there by an angel in the administration of the program who new the top of the hill was busy, and that I would struggle to park my car.  I cried when I saw the sign - another example of God's grace in action.

Today I was reminded again of the power of love operating in community, of the tender, healing grace we can convey to one another, and had the awe-stuck affirmation of having someone call me by the name that I carry deep within my heart, but never speak aloud - a gentle soul who was willing to be an instrument of God's love.  Power - Holy Ground indeed.

A perfect place to end my first week (in chronos time) or fifth week (in academic time).  Sabbath time for Saturday and Sunday...I wonder what adventures await me?

What adventures await you?

With love and prayers,
Kim