Where Life and Faith Meet
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4Ü #278

Consider the Ant

17 May 2007

WASSUP - Awaken

I've never known a time when conversations of the spirit could be so easy.

Lift almost any rock you like and under it you will find the keys to a conversation that can touch your spirit.

Busy?

What re-creates you? What restores your soul?

With my interest in Leadership you may be interested to know that the fastest growing research and publication area on leadership is "Spirituality". You simply can't lead without it!

What about the recent book Affluenza by Oliver James? It raises a huge question "why are those who have it all so unhappy?" If money can't buy happiness what can?

I thought I'd have a go at creating my own new word "informenza" - information without meaning.

With the overload of information people are getting sick (informenza).

So, what if you were to allow your soul to awaken?

Andrew

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INSIGHT OUT - Absent when present

The majority of men think they see, and do not. They believe they listen, but they do not hear. They are 'absent when present' because in the act of seeing and hearing they substitute the cliches of familiar prejudice for the new and unexpected truth that is being offered to them. They complacently imagine they are receiving a new light, but in the very moment of apprehension they renew their obsession with the old darkness which is so familiar that it, and it alone, appears to them to be light

Echoing Silence, Thomas Merton p.34

Are you ...

listening without hearing?

Seeing without perceiving?

Absent while present?

Obsessed with the familiar?

Blind to your own light?

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OUTSIGHT IN - Consider the ant

Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.

Proverbs 6:6-8

No I'm not trying to get at anyone!

Just exploring with you how God can speak in ant language.

At first glance it is quite simple. Get off your butt and do something!

The second glance goes a little deeper.

In an age where we place so much emphasis upon "the Leader" what does this little verse have to teach us?

No commander, no overseer and no ruler yet things get done! How can that be?

Maybe, just maybe we've got our understanding of leadership wrong. What if leadership was not vested in the individual but in the colony / community?

Now that would rewrite the leadership books!

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SEE YA SUNDAY - Soul Quest: Awaken

8.30 & 10.30

Starting this week a new series Soul Quest

This series explores how you can know God without selling your soul. Many people have a concept that becoming a Christian is all about becoming a stranger to themselves, this couldn't be further from the truth. It's about becoming more authentic to who you really are! God has designed you to know him. The clues to knowing God are already in you.

If you would like tape or CD copies of the messages at St Columba to pass on to others please make your request by reply to this email. There is a nominal charge for this.

Sunday evening service this week at 7.00 with Matt Chapman.

Can't wait ... see ya Sunday

Thanks for this time to chat.

Andrew
St Columba
Where Life and Faith Meet
andrew.norton@stcolumba.org.nz

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It's free but don't steal

If this is of help to others, you are welcome to forward it. This e-mail letter is 97% original - 3% cut and paste & 100% fat free. 4U is copyright to Andrew Norton. That means you can't cut and paste it and call it your own (that's stealing). I'm happy for it to be used but please refer to the author.

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LAST WORD - Is anyone Home?

One way to express the spiritual crisis of our time is to say that most us have an address but cannot be found there. We know where we belong, but we keep pulling away in many directions, as if we were still homeless.

Henri Nouwen


© 2008, St Columba Presbyterian Church, Auckland