Categories: uncategorized
Date: 02 March 2010 15:56:20
Back in January 2007 I posted this when I got back from Iona. The main body of it read, "
Here is where I sum up the deep(ish) and not so deep wisdom I discovered on Iona, or atleast that which I’m prepared to share:
1. Life is like a field of dung, if you negotiate your way through it long enough you will find somewhere beautiful.
2. Life may be like a tree in winter, but just like the tree; bare and vunerable to the elements but rooted into a strong trunk, spring will come eventually and life will blossom.
3. Mission is / was more than the Victorian subversion of it. Mission seems, instead, to be about taking the risk to move out from our own, very real, yet personal struggles for survival to join others in their struggles for survival in order to (i) just share “being” with them & (ii) help them to connect with God just where they are, in their culture and environment. Engaging in mission is about being prepared to engage in a journey and being prepared to be humble and vunerable; taking risk.
4. Tables are cool and meals are a great time to build community.
5. Running away isn’t always running away; sometimes it turn into pilgrimage and end up giving you something to run to rather than run from."
The content of points 2, 3 and 5 are things that really struck me about that trip together with some stuff which goes behind them which I wasn't and won't be, (atleast for the foreseeable future), going public on. I have never really let these three points drift from my mind, because God "spoke" to me so deeply on that trip - perhaps it is rather God has never let those points drift from my mind. Anyway,at the time I was worried anything I might be thinking God was saying might be coming from myself and be related to the fact that was the first break I had taken since my mum's death.
Over the weekend, in beautiful but urban Birmingham, I was reminded, yet again, of that trip when one of the exercises we were doing involved a memory stone from Iona. A stone that took me right back to my encounter with God in that thin place. At the moment I am, and this is all I am going to be saying for the moment, exploring whether my eventual call in life might be linked to point 3 on here. Before anybody jumps into the comments pointing out the obvious of we're all called to do this - I agree, but some of us are called to do this in specific ways.
My explorations at the moment are involving whether I think that I am called to do it in a very specific way, and whether to offer myself to be tested by others in a couple of years as to whether this is a direction my life should then take. At the weekend I was priviledged to spend some time with others who are at different stages of the journey with similar explorations.
Over 3 years ago I wrote "Engaging in mission is about being prepared to engage in a journey and being prepared to be humble and vunerable; taking risk." I think I might just be starting to discover exactly what I meant by that. Yet at the moment, I am also aware I am entering a period of waiting and preperation. Whatever happens - if anything does - will not be for a few years. This I think is good.
The one thing I am prepared to share of what I got from my weekend of exploration is that at the moment I am like the soggy garden outside. Beautiful, but still containing alot of water which has not yet been absorbed. God has watered my life lots over recent months, (regular readers will be aware of some of what he's been doing) and this watering has both nourished me and washed away alot of kak. However, I now need to have time for the water God has poured into my life to be absorbed and dry out a bit, firming up the soggy garden. (No jokes here, I know the potential this metaphor could have). During this time the garden is not stagnant, new shoots and new thorns and weeds will grow and change will occur, but basically the garden will lay undisturbed until the seasons change again.