The poet Rumi writes:
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open,
Don’t go back to sleep….
What would it be if the church were itself seen as the doorsill between the world of the sacred and the world of the secular? What if the church were the place where the two worlds touch? Rather than going to church to be renewed in our sacredness then returning to the world; rather than the church being the place set apart, the escape from the world and its ways; what if the church were the place where we realized that we can indeed be sacred in the world and with the world? What if the church were the place where we discovered the sacred that is already in the world around us.
The pond on the Advocate site existed long before it “belonged” to the church of the Advocate. And the pond has a life and ministry all its own. People come there to fish for their dinner. Bass, brim, and crappie abound. It is a peaceful place. It bids you welcome. We have a lot to learn from the people who fish there — about hospitality, about history, about fishing, about life. We have a lot to learn from the pond and its people. We have something to offer as well — the church’s story, the story of Jesus and his followers, the hope that is within us.
This newly created “Pond of Galilee” page is a place for stories and musings about the pond and its place on the site of the Church of the Advocate; the doorsill, if that isn’t mixing metaphors too much, where the two worlds touch. It is also a place to muse about the metaphorical pond that is the community and world around us, that existed before the church and exists whether the church is here or not. We have a lot to learn from the pond and from the people who fish there. We have something to offer as well.
Don’t go back to sleep!
