Day 28-5, Sunday, August 25

Day 28-5, Sunday, August 25

Okay, I have started a count-down for days remaining in my sabbatical.  We leave Christmount for home on Friday.  After a stop over to see Kay’s son, David and family in Greenville, SC, we will be home late Friday night.  It is not an unpleasant count down with kicking and screaming.  We have achieved many of the things we wanted to do.  We will continue to be fully present here.   And we will begin to sets some personal goals to return to our normal lives.  The timing seems good from Day 23.

The Stillspeaking devotion for today and our daily prayer at Guyton Christian Church beginning this week made real connections with the calling that God continues on our lives and our experience at the movie yesterday. 

Kenneth Samuel was talking about his own calling in the devotional.  As a young seminarian he heard a lecture by Howard Thurman and wanted an autograph by the author on his book, Jesus of the Disinherited.”  Samuel said he looked at me and wrote in my book, “You know the path.  Walk it.”  That’s the answer we’ve been getting too!  How about you?

Each Sunday at Guyton Christian Church we have a new prayer that we encourage everyone to pray at 12:30 pm or some other convenient time each day.  The prayer that begins today is:  O God, your will is broader than our best traditions.  Your mercy runs deeper than our finest sympathies.  Speak your Word to set us free fro attitudes that cripple, habits that are hurtful, and arguments that divide.  May we see others through the eyes of Christ and may others see the divine spark within us.  Amen.  That  really speaks to us about what we saw at The Butler. Yesterday at the movies.

We went to worship at First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Black Mountain, less than two miles from the gate at Christmount.  We really appreciated the worship and the fellowship of the faithful.  I saw an acquaintance of old there worshiping with his wife.  I first met Pablo Stone as a Kentucky Disciple representative at meetings of the Commission on Religion in Appalachia (CORA).  We had an immediate connection through Berea, KY, where his father and I had both served First Christian Church there.  The Stones and another couple are in the habit of eating out after worship.  They invited us and we joined them at a wonderful Bed and Breakfast, The Madison Inn that is open as a restaurant on certain days including Sunday brunch.  Kay had her favorite, shrimp and grits with fried green tomatoes.  It turns out we have more connections.  Pablo’s father also served Perryville Christian Church, my first congregation while in seminary at Lexington, KY.  And both of the Stones are originally from Arkansas as am I.  It was a wonderful time together at table.

I sorted and filed the last box of loose papers while Kay took a nap.  I also read up on securing my computer with additional passwords, firewall and other features.

After supper, we took a walk uphill for a ways.  There are about 90 privately owned homes in the hills above the Christmount campus.  The properties were originally part of the Christmount property and continue to have covenants with the retreat center.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (DB) continues to talk about community.  We may sometimes have mountain top experiences of Christian community but they remain nothing beyond a gracious extra to the daily bread of our community in faith.  That’s good news for folks coming down from the mountains and back to a life once thought to be routine.  Because of what God has done for all of us, we are bound together in community by faith, not by experience.