a word from the interim minister

Our Season of Faith is well under way now, and we are moving through our Age of Aquarius theme, which may seem a little at odds with Christian faith. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. One of the things people struggle with in a pluralistic society such as ours is how much do we take from the culture at large and how much do we leave  alone?
 
George Washington Carver says this: "If you love it enough, anything will talk with you."  In our faith, I paraphrase it this way: If you love God enough, everything will speak to you."
 
What I mean by that is, God is not limited to just the Bible, or just to a church building, or to just our own narrow ways of looking at anything. The most open-minded of us are still narrow in our views when we compare ourselves to God! 
 
I believe, with all my heart, mind, and strength, that God will stop at nothing to get our attention and to draw us closer. Beautiful nature speaks to most of us, yet very rarely do cross-shaped things show up to us on most days. A flower fairly screams at us that God is trying to get our attention, but flowers never say, "I believe in Jesus." Lots of us like to go to the beach, or to a river or stream, or to the mountains; others love to look at the night sky; still others look at moving clouds and see all kinds of messages there.
 
God hasn't called us to agree with each other: Disciples of Christ are notorious in our varied ways of interpreting scripture. What we ARE called to do is love one another. And God. And the world.
 
Our Season of Faith challenges us to go deeper. It is being presented to us in songs that sometimes disturb us, in images that don't contain an ounce of a picture of Jesus in them, in sermons and prayers that don't seem quite to fit in to our usual mode, and even the way we dress (well, the way I dress!) may be a little out of sync with "normal."
 
God loves us, and nothing can separate us from that love! Never fear: God is walking through this season of faith with us!
 
 - jamie
 

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