LENT Photo #16 Rebirth

   Earlier this week I went for a short drive to Catherine Hill Bay [photo of the Jetty coming soon] and I stopped at several spots to take photos of how the bush was recovering and being rebirth-ed after the horrendous bush fires from summer!! Some of the plateau still looks like a moonscape but alongside the road there are images like this of burnt out trees and thriving healthy gum trees and undergrowth alongside...
   I was reflecting on the randomness of life, it's challenges and how in community we live this way sometimes. People experience pain, loneliness, hurt and growth, beauty or love right alongside each other. Sometimes it's less obvious, sometimes you see it in people hunched over, looking tired and drawn or just plain happy and laughing with friends.
   Rebirth, being made new, is not at it's best individually, it should be shared and should remind us our freedom is tied up with others. Our life's experience is lived in community and the message of wholeness, of abundant life, of saving is not a selfish thing, maybe it's the best of things when shared.
   It comes from really listening to how others seek to live, being grace, compassion and care for them... sharing stories, sharing who or what gives us hope and tagging them along...
They might be a learned person filled with questions, a friend suffering illness or injury, a woman shunned by those in her community who needs to be included, not judged... this is the nature of a world lived according to God's values. A place acknowledging that life sometimes and often sucks, but that we travel it together... if you were of a mind to 'follow' Jesus, this is what that would be about... personal learning, saving, meshed with life giving opportunities held in our own hands or that we see and are drawn into, whether we see it or not... looking back to wonder at how that person came into our path... asylum seekers sharing their story, Pam from across the street, a young person whose car was totalled in the wet weather, an old bloke looking for a chat, a person leading for the first time, someone vulnerable enough to share their thoughts or story, the mystery of pain and illness awaiting diagnosis or treatment, people tired from day to day living... and that was just this week!!
   According to the story, sometimes God is in 'the still small voice' or our actions of being like 'salt' or 'light' in our community... the focus being on others, or something like that anyway!!