Beautiful

   

     I spent a couple of evenings this week training at Carriage Town Ministries for the position of Shift Supervisor, the person who makes sure residents and guests get where they need to be when they need to be there, and attends to various other details. It has not led to a job offer yet, but I’m hopeful it will. Carriage Town is a hub of Christian Ministry and activity and would be an ideal base for integration into the community here, I think. Would you please continue to ask God to direct me with respect to my employment?

     When one is trying to integrate into the Christian community in a new town, Sunday can be a challenge. There are about half a dozen places I’d like to be Sunday morning. I had a plan, until I found out the Sunday school class my landlord teaches and a housemate attends was starting a study on Beauty: The Invisible Embrace, a book by John O’Donohue. Beauty has been a prominent theme in my conversations with God over the last several years, so I knew immediately I had to attend the class. What is beauty and how does it factor into God’s economy? Is it reasonable to assume it’s pretty important to Him, since He has made so much of it? What does it do for us, what part does it play in our well-being? Whatever else it is or does, it gives me pleasure, so I’m motivated to understand it as well as possible, in hopes of getting more of it into my life.
     John O’Donohue says, “When we say from our heart to someone: ‘You are beautiful,’ it is more than a statement or platitude, it is a recognition and invocation of the dignity, grandeur and grace of their spirit.” (p.15)

   

     Have a beautiful week. Thank you for your prayers.