Andy Wade –
Rip! Another calendar page bites the dust. November is upon us and the stores are already crammed with Christmas decorations. Even before Halloween we were bombarded with Christmas and Thanksgiving items ready to be snatched up by the all-too-easily-influenced consumer.
All this reminds me why we chose to focus November on preparing our hearts and homes for Advent and Christmas. We need to be proactive. It’s not just the temptation to be swept up by the marketing machine; the pace of our lives seem to keep time with the hustle and bustle of the holidays. Before we know it, it’s January first and we’re making resolutions to do better next Christmas.
Resistance Is Futile! (or is it?)
“Overcoming Consumerism” is our mini-theme this week. What can we do to resist the onslaught? First and foremost, we need to be intentional. Most often I think we acknowledge the craziness of the season, wish it were different, then plunge in without a plan. In her post “Seven Tips for a Stress Free Advent and Christmas”, Christine Sine gives excellent advice to carve out physical and emotional space conducive to keeping our center during this frenetic time of year.
You might also take our four November mini-themes as reflection points as you both begin and end the week. Here they are:
- Week 1: Overcoming Consumerism — Resisting the drive for more.
- Week 2: Resting in Chaos — How to create space for rest when the world is whipped up into a frenzy.
- Week 3: Keeping It Simple
- Week 4: Making Space for Hospitality — Ideas for gatherings of welcome and moments of connecting.
With this framework, you could begin your week asking:
- What are the temptations to overconsume this coming week? Why am I tempted by them? (Knowing what motivates us to overconsume is a deeply spiritual issue). How can I become more aware of my unhealthy motivations as I go about my week?
- What gives me peace? What can I do this week that will help me to rest and refocus? As Christine suggests, you might create a place of rest in or around your home. You might try setting an alarm on your phone to 9 am, 12 noon, 3 pm, 6 pm, and 9 pm – simple reminders to stop, pray, and rest for a moment in God. Perhaps you could change how you take lunch, turning that time into a sacred break in the middle of your day.
- In the week ahead, where am I tempted to make things complicated? For many, Advent and Christmas are times to go overboard on decorations, lavish treats and dinners, and packed schedules. Take time to reflect on what is most important. If helpful, reframe your gatherings from entertainment to a gathering of good friends. When we focus on entertaining, or even hospitality, we often end up emphasizing the production rather than the people. How can you simplify by cultivating good conversations and relationships rather than complex party plans?
- That last point leads right into making space for hospitality. For us introverts, this may unearth anxieties about crowds and chaos during this season. But hospitality comes in many shapes and sizes. Valuing friendships over frenzy, you might make a point of meeting each week for coffee or tea with one person who is important to you. It might be the same person every week, or you might choose to meet with different people.
You might also want to facilitate a small gathering of friends, potluck the dinner and/or have a cookie exchange. Invite friends over for a game night, or how about a movable decoration party where you turn putting up those outdoor lights into a rotating group event? The point is to get people together in simple, fun ways that emphasize togetherness.
At the end of the week, turn those questions inside-out by asking yourself:
- How well did I live into my goals?
- What can I do differently this coming week?
- Who can I invite to join me on this journey?
That last question is critical for most of us: On our own we’re often not too successful at change. We need others around us. We need people to ask how we’re doing, what difficulties we’re facing as the holidays near, and to journey with us into a more Christ-focused season. Who might that be for you?
I hope you join us on this expedition through the jungle of holiday excess. Many perils may cross our path, but together we can reach our destination in peace and with sanity in-tact.
One more thing you might find that journaling will help you to better arrange your thoughts and review your progress. Journals don’t have to be written, they might be drawn, painted, or a scrapbook of reminders. If you do choose to write, think about different forms of writing that might release even more reflection – try a poem, a short story, or even a song.
This is part of our series “Preparing Our Hearts and Homes for Advent and Christmas”. We invite you to look ahead at the mini-theme for each week. If you’re interested in writing a post for us for one of these weeks, we’d love to share your thoughts! Please take a moment to review our “Join Our Writer’s Community” page to find out more, then drop us an email. We want Godspace to be your space.
by Christine Sine —
We are moving into the busiest time of the year, and in a world that seems to grow faster and busier by the day perhaps like me you feel that is not good news for any of us. It seems the shops are full of Christmas decorations and toys earlier than ever and everything about the upcoming season is already demanding more of our time and energy.
When Christmas is over, I wonder how many of us will look back on the season with a sense of betrayal. There is no greater contrast between the world’s focus and the Christian meaning of the season.
What should be an opportunity to strengthen our faith and model our Christian values to the world has become instead the greatest display of materialism and consumerism imaginable. Even non Christians buy Christmas cards and hold celebrations.
How can we counteract these insidious forces? Dare I mention it – we all need to develop rituals that help us connect our everyday lives to our faith – particularly at this season. Those of you that know me well will recognize this as one of my passions. Unfortunately, as evangelicals, we shy away from the very mention of the word ritual because it conjures up images of legalistic practices from the past or of New Age or pagan rituals that we know have nothing to do with our faith.
Sadly, when our faith does not provide these rituals the secular culture quickly jumps in with its quasi spiritual offerings. Massage therapy, aromatherapy, a day at the local health spa and our increasingly secularized and materialistic approach to Christmas all tantalize us with the promise of peace and relief from our stressed out lives. Tragically people of faith are just as likely to be sucked in by these rhythms and ignore the rich traditions from their faith that should provide the rituals for their lives.
There is a growing recognition of our need for practices that flow from our values and enable us to develop a rhythm that helps us cope with the escalating stresses of life. Psychologist and life coach, Martha Beck, admits,
I know that ritual is an incredibly powerful psychological process…Modern Western culture has had most of the ritual stripped from it, leaving us less grounded and more alienated than many so-called primitive peoples. By putting ritual back into your life, you can help ease stress and enhance enjoyment, benefiting everything from your immune system to your parenting skills, to your creativity.[1]
She encourages us to make rituals simple and meaningful so that they won’t overwhelm us or add to our burdens. Simplicity also means we are more likely to stick to them.
My husband Tom and I are “Anglicans come lately”. We did not grow up in with a liturgical tradition, but in the last few years we have embraced the custom of the Advent wreath with great enthusiasm. Each morning during the Advent season we take a few minutes before breakfast to light the appropriate candles and read the scriptures for the day from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer.
It is a wonderful way to center our lives on the real celebration – the coming of Emmanuel – God with us, God in us, God for us. We also like to enter into the celebration aspects of the season, however – not trying to out party the party-goers but rather to focus our joy and celebration on the true meaning of the season. Each year we hold an annual Advent party that highlights our anticipation of the return of Christ and the coming of God’s Kingdom in all its fullness when all things will be made new.
Before the Advent and Christmas seasons gets started you may like to take some time to really prepare. Develop some short rituals for you and your family to use throughout the year that enable you to enter into the joy of Christ’s birth and the wonder of God coming into our world to dwell among us without the overwhelming pressures of consumerism.
[1] Martha Beck, “Creating Special moments that enhance and enrich your life” Real
Simple April 2000, p192
This post was originally published in 2006.
by Lynne Baab
The small group Bible study gathered in the church library. As I sat down in a comfortable arm chair, I heard a woman ask the associate pastor a question about “The Church’s One Foundation,” a hymn we had sung the previous Sunday in worship.
She said, “There’s this weird part of the hymn that I don’t understand. What does it mean?” The woman read the words from the hymnbook, with “she” referring to the church: “Yet she on earth hath union with God the Three in One, and mystic sweet communion with those whose rest is won.”
The associate minister gave a brief answer, saying that “those whose rest is won” means “people in heaven.”
I was in my late twenties and he was quite a bit older. I was just starting my seminary studies and he was an ordained minister. However, I was so sure I could have given a better answer than he did!
At that point, as a young adult, I had an abstract conception of our oneness with people in heaven, and it meant a lot to me. More than thirty years have passed since that day, and I have experienced losses of people dear to me. My two grandmothers were models of faith to me, and I’m so grateful I can imagine them in heaven. I’m so grateful I can feel an ongoing connection to them.
A very close friend died when we were both 41, and I know she is dancing in the presence of the God she loved her whole life. I think about her often, someone “whose rest is won,” even though it feels like she was really too young to need rest. She and I are still a part of the same body of Christ, even if I am still on earth and she is in heaven. We have “mystic sweet communion.”
On All Saints Day, November 1, we remember all the saints, not just the ones who have done something dramatic. We remember ordinary people who love and serve God, saints still living on earth or resting in God’s presence. I encourage you on this day to think about the people who have shaped your journey of faith, people you met in person, in the Bible, or in a book, people living today and people who lived in the recent or distant past. Pray some thankfulness prayers for them, and relish the fact that you have “mystic sweet communion” with them, wherever they are.
I think part of why I wanted to give a longer answer to that woman’s question so many years ago is that from childhood I was steeped in the hymn, “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God.” I knew it by heart, and more than anything else in my childhood, it inspired me to want to love and serve God. The author, Lesbia Lesley Scott (1898-1986), wrote hymns for her three children during the 1920s. She composed this one for All Saints Day, November 1.
- I sing a song of the saints of God,
patient and brave and true,
who toiled and fought and lived and died
for the Lord they loved and knew.
And one was a doctor, and one was a queen,
and one was a shepherdess on the green;
they were all of them saints of God, and I mean,
God helping, to be one too.2. They loved their Lord so dear, so dear,
and his love made them strong;
and they followed the right for Jesus’ sake
the whole of their good lives long.
And one was a soldier, and one was a priest,
and one was slain by a fierce wild beast;
and there’s not any reason, no, not the least,
why I shouldn’t be one too.3. They lived not only in ages past;
there are hundreds of thousands still.
The world is bright with the joyous saints
who love to do Jesus’ will.
You can meet them in school, on the street, in the store,
in church, by the sea, in the house next door;
they are saints of God, whether rich or poor,
and I mean to be one too.
Thanks to all who wrote such inspiring words this month. Check out the articles below for great inspiration to Live into the Radical Shalom of God.
Traditionally a time of thin places and a softening of the veil between the living and the dead, Hallowe’en has changed into a festival of masks and mayhem. Only this year seems to have decided to bring the masks out early and with them, a great deal of fear.
During October, imitation killer clowns began appearing, even in tiny British suburbs. Those wanting to intimidate and control us, like miniature media moguls, were even on our street corners, brandishing knives and getting a kick out of terrifying us. These costumed fear mongers have been more prevalent in the USA of course, where Hallowe’en is celebrated in a big way, primarily with costumes and candy.
Christians have always tended to get our collective underwear in a bit of a twist about it, since at its worst it can seem like a glorification of all that is frightening and can lead people into a casual acquaintance with the occult. We are right to be wary, but we also need to keep our perspective balanced, knowing that this is not, nor was it ever, a celebration of evil. Every culture has some kind of day of the dead, and we ourselves recognise the communion of saints which contains both the living and those already in heaven which is celebrated on All Saints’ Day during the same “thin” time.
It is only recently that violence and fear have begun a heavy involvement. This year in particular, it feels like the masks that evil wears are cast to one side and that it is brazenly abroad. To have a presidential candidate able to speak hatred and sexism openly without losing a great deal of support, is a case in point. Donald Trump’s comments (past and present) about women are no political joke, but misogyny unafraid to remove any costume of pretended dignity it had previously worn. The hilarity of clowns no longer funny, and a blustering billionaire no longer only an absurdity. At the same time in Dakota, we witnessed those in uniform (the mask of the state) setting attack dogs and using tear gas on peaceful protestors, and saw sites sacred to indigenous peoples bulldozed and desecrated. The masks and the gloves, it seems, are off.
The ugly faces of predatory power, of patriarchy and capitalism have thrown off all pretence and shown themselves as nakedly aggressive. Why pretend to be civilised any longer, if on the one hand there is so much apathy that public opinion poses no threat, and if on the other the law has become so deeply ingrained in the values of the system that there is no way to lose? Add to this the massive support from the disenfranchised, baited and manipulated by the right wing press, and then greed and narcissism, the banks and the billionaires, can do whatever they damn well please.
At this time, we need to be reminded of a few truths. One is that evil only appears to show itself without masks when it is desperate. Often even the absence of masks is a cover up. For example, there appears to be a consensus on the internet that Mr. Trump is suffering from narcissism, and this makes him the king of the ultimate mask – self-confidence. Wearing the untruth of massive ego brings a false pride, which coupled with power and money, creates a façade of invulnerability for a person who possibly, deep down, believes themselves horribly unworthy. If the pundits are right, when the illusion falls apart, it will not be pretty. Perhaps with that in mind, we might pray for him and his angry supporters.
Another is that often, things that purport to be of God but are not, come in hissings and sidlings. All evil, whether subtle or blatant, tells lies about God’s character – especially his goodness and his reliability – and goes against Scripture. If we hold onto our certainty that the Living God is holy and wholly good, and know our Bible, we won’t fall for the falsehoods.
It’s true also that God does not wear masks. He sends messengers, signs and wonders, for sure, because his entirety is too awe-inspiring and magnificent for us to bear, and he speaks to us in a still, small voice. He chooses the lowly and the poor, and his presence brings a nerve-tingling soul-quake that is about supreme wonder and never despair or darkness.
Moses showed us that we can live nearly a century in knowing God, and still only be ready for a glimpse of the backside of his holiness. If we are spending a great deal of time with him, we may begin to shine, not with fake tan and whitened teeth, but with a radiance that inspires awe, as it did in those around Moses when he came down from Mount Sinai, his face aglow with God. No mask that, but a showing of God’s glorious intimacy, right there for all to see! God’s ways may sometimes be mysterious or secret, but only ever to protect us from the fullness of his majesty. Our God is always moving us towards truth, towards honesty, openness and vulnerability. He never speaks or asks us to speak falsehoods, and he is the enemy of giant egos everywhere.
And the last truth I want to mention is that evil never wins. Oh the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy in this world, we know that only too well! But every regime except God’s will end, and we are instructed to take heart that all is overcome, even as All Saints’ Day dawns into the darkness of Hallowe’en. Perfect love really does drive out fear, have no doubt.
Patriarchal systems have always lent themselves beautifully to the wearers of masks: for those who seek to manipulate by fear are given power and credence, and those who want to live with openness and vulnerability as their watchwords are shouted down and chased away, shamed and abused. Hallowe’en may be a time when veils are thin, but we must remember that the curtain which separated us from the Holy of Holies was torn in two by outrageous love over two thousand years ago, and the way to God is clear. We need no special day or time to draw near, no bulldozers to make the way, and no pretence of our own righteousness to proceed. The Kingdom of God, as Jesus was so fond of saying, is indeed close at hand.
Keren’s latest book, “Whale Song: Choosing Life with Jonah” will be out in November.
Its time to get ready for Advent and Christmas. Decorations, trees, lights and gifts are already prominently displayed in the stores encouraging us to buy early and be ready for the consumer frenzy to follow. So how do we keep our focus on what really matters at this season? Here are some practices I have found helpful.
Find your Centre.
I usually start my preparation for Advent and Christmas by creating a new sacred garden for the season. However, as I sat and reflected on this today I realized that there is a step that needs to precede this. I need to centre my life each day on the indwelling presence of God. This is particularly important during busy seasons of distraction.
For the month of November I have instituted a spiritual practice that IÂ believe will reshape my sacred space into a profound place of encounter with God during the Advent and Christmas season.
I begin by sitting still with my eyes closed for a couple of minutes taking deep breathes in and out. Sometimes I read through one of these breathing prayers or this one that I have written in the past. When I feel my spirit is a peace I recite the centering prayer above, aloud, several times and imagine myself sitting in the centre of God’s love. Reciting prayers aloud engages our whole being at a deep level. The words resonate throughout our whole being and lodge more deeply in our hearts.
I then ask: What would I like God to accomplish in my life during Advent and Christmas? or In what ways do I want to draw close to Christ during this season?Â
I use this exercise at the beginning of the day and then again at the end. My whole day is embraced by God’s centering love and it helps me establish important priorities for the season without feeling stressed out and pressured.
Question:Â How would you like to draw close to Christ during Advent and Christmas? What is one practice you could establish now to help accomplish that?
Unclutter your space.
The stores are right we do need to begin early with our preparations for Advent and Christmas, but the place to start is not with consumerism in fact quite the reverse. I am convinced that clutter distracts and unsettles us so that we feel we need more stuff in order to be satisfied.
Is there a space that you like to use each day for your spiritual practices? Sit in this space for a while and allow yourself to relax without any specific spiritual practice in mind. Are there objects that catch your attention and draw you away from the presence of God? Does it contain clutter that distracts you and makes you think about your next shopping trip, eating binge or party plan? If possible remove these items.
Now think about what makes your place comfortable as a place of prayer. Do you need to add a candle, a prayer card, an icon or other symbol that reminds you of the purpose of your journey towards Christmas and the birth of Christ?
Question: What are one or two things you could do to create a more God focused, relaxing and uncluttered sacred space?
Create a Visual Advent Focus
This is a very serious November task for me. Out of my November practices I create a new sacred space for Advent. In the last few years this has been an Advent garden, but as Tom and I will be in Australia for the entire month of December that may not be practical this year. I am already sensing a theme that God wants me to focus on (more of that next week) but how to keep that in focus while I travel and spend time with friends and relatives I am not sure of. It’s time to get my creativity hat on!
You might like to use traditional symbols of Advent:Â wreaths, candles, mangers and music to create a focus for the season, but you don’t have to. In fact because these have become so much a part of the secular lead up to Christmas, they can distract us and draw us away from Christ rather than towards him.
Other possibilities include – an Advent/Christmas art journal, collage, or colouring book (download the one we created last year to go along with the Advent devotional A Journey Toward Home)Â
Question: What would you like to be the focus of your Advent and Christmas? What is one object you already have or could create that reminds you of the Christ child entering our world? How could you use this to help you maintain your focus during Advent and Christmas? Â
Declutter your time.
Now is the time to take control of your schedule throughout the Advent and Christmas season. Before you fill your calendar with busy Christmas events and trips to the mall schedule some alone time for renewal and refreshment. So often self care is at the bottom of our list of priorities during this season when it should be at the top. What most refreshes you and draws your attention back to God and the real meaning of the Advent and Christmas season? For me it is five minutes of centred prayer each morning and evening and a half day or longer retreat at least once during December.  If we don’t get these type of practices on our schedule early they will never happen and this will become yet another stressed out Christmas season.
I encourage you to schedule some away time now during the month of December for rest and refreshment. It might just be a half day but I think you will find it an invaluable practice.
Question: What is one practice you need to get on your calendar now for the Advent and Christmas season to help you maintain an ordered and balanced approach to the season?Â
Establish a Reading Discipline
There are an amazing array of Advent devotionals around and the number grows each year. There are also a lot of Advent/Christmas scripture reading plans too. Tom and I love to read the scriptures in the daily lectionary but Godspace posts a list each year of other possible reading plans and devotionals. The links here go to last year’s lists, but keep your eyes open for these to be updated in the next week or so.
Question:Â What Bible readings would you like to institute during the Advent/Christmas season.? What other reading would assist you in your journey towards the manger?
Maintain a Sabbath.
If you practice sabbath throughout the year, Advent and Christmas is not a season to let go of this habit. In fact protecting it should be one of your priorities. There might be changes you want to make for the season. There might be special practices and activities you want to incorporate, but whatever you do don’t let go.
Question:Â What steps do you need to take in order to protect your Sabbath day during the Advent/Christmas season?
Celebrate your faith not the culture.
This is a season to celebrate what is most meaningful in our faith. Tom and I love to go to a performance of the Messiah at Christmas. It anchors us in the celebration of our faith rather than the culture around us. Think about how you could celebrate your faith more fully this Christmas – perhaps exchanging gifts on St Nicholas day rather than Christmas day, carolling on Christmas eve around your neighbourhood, or planning a day to give away Christmas, or working in a homeless shelter for a night or two. There are endless possibilities that help us maintain a Christ centred focus. You might also like to consider an alternative gift giving Christmas as we suggest in Helping Your Children Give Back This Christmas
Question:Â What celebrations could you incorporate into your Christmas and Advent seasons in order to maintain a Christ focus?Â
We don’t need to allow the pressures of the culture to consume us this Christmas. We can take back our time and our resources and discover the joy of a true Christ centred celebration.
from Pixabay. by Robson Machado. Click image for original.
On Kodiak Island Alaska there is a story told of an Aleutian boy who lived with his grandmother. The two were trying to stretch out their meager supply of dried seal meat to get them through what was a very rough winter. The grandson became tired of eating the same thing day after day and each day he complained to his grandmother to let him go out and hunt for something more to break up the monotony of dried seal. Finally, after the grandmother had heard just too much complaining from the grandson, she allowed him to go hunt, but she gave him these words of instruction, “after you make your first kill, bring it home to share, and we will be satisfied.”
With harpoon, knife and net in hand, the next morning the boy eagerly set out to find something better to eat than dried seal. The winter was severe and there was little game stirring so the boy had to wander quite a way from his village. Out on the horizon he saw something darting about. It was a mouse, and a small one at that, but the boy set out to hunt and kill the mouse. Although he remembered his grandmother’s words, “after you make your first kill, bring it home to share, and we will be satisfied,” he thought to himself, “I have already spent too much energy hunting this small mouse, even if I ate the whole mouse myself, I would not have the energy to get back home.” So the boy ate the mouse and continued on his hunting journey.
Next, the boy came to a stream where he was able to catch a small fish. The fish was so small he was able to swallow it with one large gulp, completely forgetting his grandmother’s words. He followed the stream to find a lone salmon waiting to die. By this time he was famished, since the mouse and the fish were so small. He caught the salmon and immediately began eating the best parts of the fish. When he had almost finished the entirety of the salmon he remembered his grandmother’s words once again, but it was too late. The boy had started a pattern and a pace that would grow as large as the appetite he was developing.
Next, he netted a ptarmigan. Then he speared a seal and ate the whole thing. As he continued to go farther into areas he had never seen before, the boy hunted a walrus and consumed it completely. One animal after the other, and his appetite just kept growing. Finally, after being gone for what seemed like months, his appetite was almost insatiable, so he found a beached whale and he began to eat it, bite after bite, until there was nothing left. By this time the boy had noticed that he had grown so large in size that he no longer looked like himself. He was almost as big as his grandmother’s house. Now this made the boy very sad. What had he become?
Suddenly, he remembered his grandmother’s words, “after you make your first kill, bring it home to share, and we will be satisfied.” The boy began to understand, nothing he ate would satisfy his great hunger. Thinking of his poor grandmother back home eating dried seal, or by this time, perhaps starved to death, made the boy very sad. Feeling hopeless, he cried for hours and then he made a decision to find his way home again.
As the boy walked, his belly was so full that it swished and swashed with each step he took. After many days he finally spotted his village and then made it to his grandmother’s home. There he sat, outside the door, crying because he realized he could no longer fit through the door. His grandmother heard the boy outside and immediately told him what to do. “Grandson, she said. “Climb on the roof and come down the smoke hole.” Although he knew he would never fit through the small smoke hole in the roof he, nonetheless, obeyed his grandmother. The she said, “put your feet in the hole and drop down.” As the boy put his feet in the smoke hole, the grandmother lifted up a bone needle she had made and the boy miraculously passed through the eye of it to become himself once again.
On his way down all the animals and fish he had consumed came out of his mouth, spewing up through the smoke hole and landed in front of his grandmother’s home. They gathered up the whale, and the walrus, and the seal, and the ptarmigan, and the salmon, and the small fish and the mouse and everything else the boy had consumed while he was away. When they had gathered it all up they prepared a feast for the whole village, made up of all those fine foods. But the boy was satisfied just to eat dried seal.
The story of the boy and his grandmother was likely a traditional story modified after the Aleutian people heard the Bible story in Luke 18:25 when Jesus said, “For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (RSV) or else, it is an uncanny coincidence. Whether adapted or original, the story is illustrative of many of the values of Indigenous North Americans when it comes to understanding poverty.
Wealth, in traditional North American Indigenous cultures, was most often measured by food supply and the conditions of the homeland from which it was supplied. The normal expectation was to be satisfied with whatever one had, and one’s primary responsibility was to share it with others. The seminal Indigenous value of generosity was based on abundance as the norm, and scarcity as the exception. In the story, the exponential increase of food for oneself and the parallel change in the boy becoming less of himself by not sharing what he had, creates something grotesquely less than a simple human being. In a sense, the boy became a monster through his own greed. Indeed, the cure for his dilemma was
- Listening to his elderly grandmother, who was the repository of wisdom
- Returning home, to his own land and his community of support
- Sharing what food he had, with his community. (Note: the way he shared it was regurgitation, which is supposed to add humor to the story).
Many of the values concerning poverty and wealth among traditional Native North Americans are based on these shalom principles. The boy’s survival depended on listening to his elder, understanding the primacy of his own homeland but his actual wealth came from sharing his food among his community. Perhaps the most important aspect of shalom, though there are many, is generosity that is focused on equity, (everyone has something and equality (everyone has equal opportunity).
In a capitalistic and individualistic society such as ours, we must find ways to share. And, that sharing must be directed towards hospitality and empowering those who are marginalized and disenfranchised. Economies based on the “trickle-down” approach never work. Like the grandson, we must remember to share ourselves, our homes, our food, our financial and other resources if we want to live into the shalom teachings of Jesus and other harmony way traditions. If that means sometimes just being happy eating dried seal, I think we will be ok.
This post is part of the October theme Living Into the Shalom of God.
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