See the Faces

    I'm not sure about you, but in my regular, every day activities I often have to set aside moments to step back and breath.  I'm very much a tech person and am quite "connected" into our digital world.  I get news updates, friend updates, instagram photo posts, etc.  While I know that not everyone is tied into the digital world, we all tend to struggle with being "in the moment."  We tend to be thinking of what tasks we are doing or what's coming next on the schedule.  We struggle with "Be-ing."
    This particular season in the life of our church community has been a challenging one to say the least.  We are all aware of the losses we have experienced and how that has affected us both personally and as a church.  One person recently stated that, "when we are together I often get focused on the blank spaces and not on the faces."
   While acknowledging and owning the season that our community has been through, I would love to encourage us into a new movement.  A movement that allows us to "See the faces, and not the blank spaces."  My prayer is that at this moment, we begin to recognize, even more, the gifts, the talents, and the stories of the people around us.  Loss often moves us into a place of realizing the blessing of what we have, and how to cultivate that into a richer, life-giving environment.  May we be a people driven to the present, owning the stories that have shaped us, and begin to be more present with who God has placed around us at any given moment. 

             -Chris White