PAGES Spring 2001 Editorial
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Editorial, Spring 2001 issue of PAGES:
"Looking Around Me"
"I felt it a shelter to speak to you," Emily Dickinson once wrote to a friend.
I recall Helen Alderfer, an editor/mentor beginning a retreat session once long ago with the question, "Is this a safe place?" That look-in-the-eye inquiry plunked into my hungry spirit has lodged there ever since. Can my loved ones count on my loyalty, my willingness to truly listen — especially one they know still has a lot to learn?
Jesus was this kind of friend. What an example he gives as he nurtures his human relationships!
Listen and observe as Jesus accepts bold questions of the woman skeptic at the well, listens thoughtfully to timid Nicodemus in the dark of night — caring enough to challenge. Walk with Jesus as he firmly requests space away from curiosity seekers for Jairus at his daughter's bedside, and simply stops the parade to heal blind Bartimaeus, to minister to the woman who touches his cloak, to ask the hard questions of those glibly offering to follow — and always to point a truer way to the godly, yet rejecting, Pharisees.
We see this teacher luxuriating in the warm hospitality he finds in the home of Lazarus, Mary and Martha, inviting undiscerning but loyal Peter, James and John to join him on the mountaintop, staying awhile after the resurrection to give assurances of their part in God's ongoing story — and finally, announcing clearly the coming gift of the Holy Spirit, the divine friend who will inspire and truly "shelter."
I wonder. Where can we look for such safe relationships? Dare such comforting friends sometimes offer a challenge or a word of caution? Can giving shelter from the storm not only protect, but indeed inspire, the sheltered to go out again and face the storm?
I am learning that this call to such a cycle of giving and receiving hospitality keeps right on coming to us — with no retirement age! "I felt it a shelter to speak to you." This is an earthly extension of divinest grace.
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