Books,  Community,  Relationship with God

Its about where you put your eyes

Meeting God in the moment

I was on washing up duty the other day at the Poatina motel.

One of the unique things about living in this village are the rosters. I regularly find myself doing things that I wouldn’t ordinarily do.

As I washed up I had strong feelings of incompetence.. I feel so out of my depth in a kitchen like that.

I know that it would be easy to come up with excuses why my time is too precious to do things like this, and when I am staring at some utensil I have never seen before and trying to work out what to do with it, the thought does enter my mind.

Increasingly I am coming to realise that these moments are precious.. moments that cause me to have to step out of my comfort zone and into this moment.

Every now and then I have been including excerpts from Jean Vanier’s Community and Growth. Often as I read it it feels like he has been here at Poatina, but of course he hasn’t. He founded L’Arche communities that are based on caring for the disabled in the same way that Fusion communities are based on caring for young people.

I love what he writes here:

If we are in community only to ‘do things’, its daily life will not nourish us; we will be constantly thinking ahead, because we can always find something urgent to be done. If we live in a poor neighbourhood or with people in distress, we are constantly challenged. Daily life is only nourishing when we have discovered the wisdom of the present moment and the presence of God in small things. It is only nourishing when we have given up fighting reality and accept it, discovering the message and gift of the moment. If we see housework or cooking simply as chores which have to be got through, we will be tired and irritable we will not be able to see the beauty around us. But if we discover that we live with God and our brothers and sisters through what has to be done in the present moment, we become peaceful. We stop looking to the future; we take time to live. We are no longer in a hurry because we have discovered that there is a gift and grace in the present of the book-keeping, the meetings, the chores and the welcome.

I find his insight very useful as I think about doing rosters in Poatina. I am actually starting to see them as one of the real gifts of life here in the village.

I'd love to hear what you think...