Gently Walking

• Village Fair and 5K is on August 15th this year (third Saturday of August); mark your calendars. Please message Charlotte to register for the Race (you may also request a t-shirt, we may have extras, but only a very few).
• INC Summer Worship on August 16th at 10am at South Athol Church (there will be no services at CCNOT that day, but please join us with INC).
• This week is First Thursday Lunch at Herricks at noon. Be Welcome!
• Morning Walks are now on Thursdays at 10am (instead of Friday).
• Death Cafe is on September 26th at 4pm.
• Discussion Circle is on the last Sunday of the month after Church. These discussions are here to to inspire, teach, guide, and challenge us–all are welcome to join us (we often explore sacred passages, poetry, and other words to inspire us toward freshness, surprise, and wonder).

Visit our Calendar of Events to explore our upcoming dates and times

All are Welcome. If you are uncomfortable with the word God, please feel welcome to insert your own word for the divine or Mystery in your life (Universe/Grace/Spirit/Divine).

These Reflections are written to be read aloud, please forgive any writing errors. You can find the recording HERE (usually late Sunday morning).

SUNDAY REFLECTION:

MidSummer: The First Harvest:

There is a Story, told in many variations and in many traditions, of a person quietly planting trees.  They are asked: why waste your time planting trees that will never bear fruit in your lifetime?  Why not plant something that you will reap the benefits of for yourself?  

The tree planter says: because I am planting for something that is bigger than myself.  I am planting seeds for a future I will not be a part of, because someone I have never met planted trees for me.  

We tend to walk through life heavy footed and narrow focused.  We’re busy and thoughtless and we often don’t notice what’s happening around us.  We put on layers of armors, so that we look strong, maybe especially when we feel most weak and vulnerable.  We are told to be strong and powerful…big and “important”.  

We see big, loud, powerful, and “important” all around us.  This isn’t the first time, nor the last, I’m sure.  This is perhaps what Jesus saw all around him in the people, the rulers, and the religious leaders of his time.  

It doesn’t work well.  It divides and separates us.

Jesus asks us to let this thoughtlessness, armors, and heavy footed way of being fall away. Jesus asks us to walk lightly and meekly.  

When we tread more simply, we notice the resources that could be used more wisely.  We notice those who have less and that our resources might be better shared.  

When we live more meekly, quietly, and simply, our relationships deepen.  We develop a deeper relationship with the world around us. The people and the “more than human world”: the birds, the animals, the Earth itself.  We become more connected in a disconnected world.

When we are more calm (meek), we fear less.  We have less fear of one another.  Less fear that there might not be enough stuff to go around.  Less fear of nature.  

Even if we’re not afraid, we’re encouraged not to touch.  There’s your stuff and my stuff.  We don’t share or give easily. This is why we need libraries and shared worship spaces—not just for our minds and souls, but for connection and sharing.  

Even in nature there’s a clear delineation.  Don’t step off the well marked trail.  Don’t disturb the rocks or the trees.  Even in nature, which is naturally connecting, we’ve learned to feel separate.  Don’t do anything that might mark you’ve been there.  In many cases this is good and protective, but in other ways it’s made us separate from, and fearful of, the Garden.  We’re not a part of it.  

If we tread more lightly and meekly, we better see and understand the world around us.  We begin to see our part within it. Our place in the pattern of life.  We touch lives and the living things and living places with tenderness and care.  

Maybe the meek literally inherit the Earth, the Garden, in gentleness, connection, and in loving more deeply.  Slowing down, being meek and a little less busy to see and listen and feel.  To become connected again.  A part of the Wholeness–(maybe this is holiness).  

When we are meek and simple and humble and hungry those heavy armors of self identity fall away.  Maybe what Jesus wants us to understand is that all these identities aren’t labels that we are meant to hold on to, but ways of beings that we all experience.  It’s ok to embrace those moments as real, but not to cling to them as the only truth.  

Identity is fluid.  Sometimes, we are strong, sometimes meek.  Sometimes poor, sometimes rich.  Sometimes sad, sometimes joyous. Who we are ebbs and flows.  Often without anything outside of ourselves changing.  The only thing that changes is us. 

We are blessed when we are at our most vulnerable.  PAUSE It’s here that we inherit the earth and the kingdom.  When we are not at our weakest we less likely to inherit this Goodness.  Why?  PAUSE.  Because we are no longer living in truth.  PAUSE. Because our defensive walls have become too thick.  We have created barriers to one another, the world, and Love.

We must let down our guards.  We must let down the walls that keep us separated from those around us and the beautiful, blessed world around us.  

When we are meek, we listen and see better others for who they truly are.  The easy boxes fall away: nice person, mean person, wimpy person, strong person, richer person, poorer person, important person, not-important person. 

We interact better with others.  We engage better, even when it would be easier to turn away and cast labels.  Especially those we have turned into “others”.  We’ve all heard, and experienced, stories of the most unlikely of friendships. Those friendships began with letting down the barriers to listen and see—to come to understanding.  

When we are humble and meek, we can be open to knowing those who challenge and scare us.  Those who think differently, those who are culturally different, those who believe differently, those who are differently abled, feel differently gendered, or who are struggling in ways we don’t understand. 

When we are less harsh in our ways, we develop deeper relationships and inherit friends.  Real relationships, and deep connections for this earthly life.  We become gentle people walking each other home.  

Jesus asks us to get to know “others”.  The meek, the poor, the widow, the marginalized, the sick, the stranger, the physically ill, the mentally ill.  To get to know others and who they are and remember that they are worthy of honor, blessings, and Grace. 

Love doesn’t mean that we invite everyone into our homes.  This isn’t asking us to be unsafe, but it does ask us to get a little uncomfortable—and there is a big gap between uncomfortable and unsafe.  

Love ask us to realize our common humanity.  Love reminds us that every person is loved by Grace.  

That is the gift of loving Grace: Love.  And there’s nothing “easy” about loving ourselves and one another.  

Jesus, too, is asking us to accept who we are. To be patient, meek, and humble with ourselves.  To be okay with the labels of ourselves that we are uncomfortable with.  And, perhaps, to begin to let them soften.  We all have labels and vulnerabilities.  We don’t like to be open and vulnerable.  But it is in openness and vulnerability that we experience the most powerful and deepest relationships with this life that we have been given.  

None of us is perfect. And yet, we are.  PAUSE.  

Meek, perhaps, asks us to let go of the armors we cling to to protect our self identity and to be open to being vulnerable, to being hurt, because to love the Earth, to love others, and to love ourselves is the keystone.  It is worth loss to know the deepest relationships.  And in those deepest relationships, we inherit friends and soul friends.  We inherit the Earth.  We inherit Love.