Well, today I got to spend my 16th birthday with family here at PBB. First,
John, Blake, and I made breakfast for everyone. Second, we went to
Northminster church for morning worship.
Today was a very eventful day. We started the day off with a trip over to the Labyrinth for our Spiritual Practice class. It was an amazing experience for me. The whole walk symbolized for me, God leading us in the right path throughout our lives.
“We are the seeds of the community that is and is to come.” This quote comes from Joy Crawford and we were introduced to it during our Breadmaking Activity. It seemed to sum up how the day went today and where our group is at this point. We began the activity with the most logical step, making dough. Suzanne Vinson led us in this process. Before today, I found this process about as holy as taking out the trash.
Throughout this week, Joy has been asking everyone if we believe that our group can be referred to as “church.” I initially dismissed that notion, because of the connotation of the word. The denotation of the word, however, is a “body of Christians worshipping in a particular building or constituting one congregation.” I think that, after today, everyone here at Project Burning Bush would agree that we have become a “church.” The most important aspect of this definition is the latter: “constituting one congregation.”
There was a change in the atmosphere today, everyone seemed to be on the verge of “stepping out” and showing their true colors. Everyone was just about ready to throw off their shields. The day was long and exhausting, but full of break-throughs.
“‘Come to the edge.’
‘We can’t. We’re afraid.’
‘Come to the edge.’
‘We can’t. We will fall.’
‘Come to the edge.’
And they came.
And he pushed them. And they flew.”
– Guillaume Apollinaire
We’ve got an edge when reading the gospels. We know how it turns out in the end. We know that there is pain and there is death, but in the narrative it all works out with this seemingly-easy thing called a resurrection that effortlessly rolls off our tongues on Sunday morning as we sip our coffee and have a church donut.
Resurrection is hard though. So hard that only God gets to do it. And we who have faith hope for a day when God will do this for us and for the rest of creation.
