As a Gobby Vicar (Owl may be another of my patron ‘saints’!) I love the sound of my own voice and never pass up an opportunity to tell others what God really wants us (well, others) to do. I know that daily I need to stop, smell the petrichor, and listen to the voice of Our Beloved saying ‘Where are you’?
Eventually he learns that his real ‘treasure’ is not to be found in ten (or even 10 hundred) pots of honey but instead it is amongst his friends in the 100 Aker Wood.
Like the Grinch we must learn that friendship and joy is never about possessions and gifts and stuff, but about each other. When we finally realise that all our hearts will ‘Grow three sizes’.
…nothing mars or misleads the influence that issues from a pure and humble and unselfish character.
Perhaps our Beloved’s words of rebuke to the Storm are as much to us as to the wind and the waves that immediately obey?
Our brokenness, our emptiness, regardless of how we came to be broken and empty, are exactly the gifts our Beloved requires of us. Nothing else is needed.
Sometimes, perhaps flippantly, when something has not turned out quite as expected a wag will say. ‘Well. it’s the thought that counts.’ Never a truer word has been said. It is all about the thought that we put into our daily tasks of service, even though they may seem ever so mundane, that counts.
This generosity with strings attached is becoming more and more prevalent in our society. Too often those who can offer help want the whole world to know what their left hands and right hands are doing.
If we have no dates we have no roots, we need them to help us grow up good.
How about the next time we meet an Eeyore Christian we resist the temptation to ignore them, to belittle them, to try and gee them up, to gossip about them, and instead sit and listen?
Suffolk Vicar 