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For more that ten years I gave myself to this work, striving to blend presence and tenderness into the life of my pastoral vocation. We learned a lot about loving Jesus during this time: how to be vulnerable to the blessings of the Spirit, how to trust God beyond the obvious, how to open our hearts to one another in solidarity. In retrospect, it was a beautiful and faithful decade albeit hard as hell and complicated, too. To my surprise, while on sabbatical in Montreal, this same still, small voice caught my attention again. For the four months we were away it became clearer and clearer that my days as a local church minister were numbered. Then, while leaving a Taize worship celebration on our last night in Montreal, Di said to me, "You clearly are being called to step out of the local church, but your days of ministry are far from over." She was right - as is so often the case - and with time, angst, prayer, study, discernment, exploration, tons of uncertainty, and lots of waiting the One who is holy has been encouraging me to go deeper into a spirituality of tenderness in three unique ways.
If you want your dream to be,
take your time, go slowly
Do few things but do them well,
Heartfelt work grows purely
If you want to live life free,
Take your time, go slowly
Do few things but do them well,
Heartfelt work grows purely
Day by day, stone by stone,
Build your secret slowly
Day by day, you'll grow too,
You'll know heaven's glory
+ Second, as a part of the L'Arche Ottawa community. This is a ministry of mutuality. I am enriched and blessed simply by being in relationship with the core members, assistants and community leaders. In turn, I am able to share my gifts of music, liturgy, prayer and presence in service to the common good. It is in these small acts that I have experienced the presence of Jesus - quiet, small and often obscure - but always real. Pamela Cushing puts this encounter into perspective in an essay on Jean Vanier's invitation to accept our vulnerability.
In a world obsessed with mastery and control, Jean Vanier demonstrates the deep value of imperfection. He helps us to see that often all of our striving for mastery and control are as much about wanting to hide our fear of their opposite – that we might be as imperfect and fallible as everyone else... (He) argues that if we can accept that imperfection is intrinsic to being human, we will be liberated of the weighty burden of always trying to measure up to what someone defines as good or normal. Instead of our effort going to hide our imperfection, we can invest in thinking about how we might encourage greater humility around appreciating each other’s imperfections as an important part of the diverse human ecosystem, while never abandoning the effort to grow and change to serve others better.
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