The Role of Social Justice in Hodos

Any examination of The Way has to involve relentless acts of social justice. Jesus was so clear on this in what he taught and said, and we see God's heart reflected throughout scripture (2300 verses on the poor and money). He calls those with two coats to give to those who have none; those who gather in the fields to leave some for those who have none; and those who are blessed to be a blessing. The bible is replete with examples, and some would say that God says more about money and helping the poor than about anything else. The call is to be a river of blessing for God - yet another way the Kingdom breaks in for the One who is closer than our skin.

But what does that mean for Hodos - The Way? What do National Aids Day (yesterday), Rwanda, Sudan, Darfur, New Orleans mean for us who would look to stumble down the way, ever closer in essence to that which God created us to be? What do the homeless on the street mean to our walk? How about the invisible child soldiers of Uganda? Where do these fit into The Way?

It is my contention that Jesus makes clear that our walk MUST include caring for the least, the last and the lost in society - This IS the way. Anything less than that is in danger of becoming shallow and self-indulgent.

"Today in the next 24 hours 5500 Africans will die of AIDS. Today in childbirth, 1400 African mothers will pass on HIV to their newborns. If this isn't an emergency, what is? In the Scriptures we are not advised to love our neighbors, we are commanded. the church needs to lead the way here, not drag its' heels. the government needs guidance. We discuss, we debate, we put our hands in our pockets. We are generous, even.

But, I tell you, God is not looking for alms; God is looking for action. He is not just looking for our loose change - He's looking for a tighter contract between us and our neighbor."

This quote from Bono's address to the church is a sharp cry for action, and one that we must echo. The other day I was pondering the role of technology in our society. We have taken this tool and tried to turn it to our use, but what if that was never the goal? What if it was really given that we might have a window out of which we can see the world, and the world is starving? As Christian's in the west we have a responsibility to these dying and despairing, and I wonder if it is only in so doing that we find HODOS, the Way.

The Desert Fathers fled the world to be alone with God, as did the Essenes in Jesus day. And yet Scripture calls us to be Monks in the World - The gospel compells us outward, and into the mess and the joy of humanity. Alex Mcmanus once said "The gospel doesn't call us to be Christian, it calls us to be fully human", and it is in caring for the needs of the dying that we can begin to become that.

Remonking is happening - The church is looking to ancient, modern and postmodern practices to find the Way. Meditation, prayer, contemplation, spiritual disciplines . . . All of them drive us to the feet of Jesus. But it is there that the lover of our souls lifts us up and points back at the hurting and the broken. He invites us to be part of a revolution where we find Him in the homeless, see Him in the sick, and care for Him in the despairing.

Jesus is the Way, and His call to relentless acts of social justice is clear. May God lead us out, that we might love others with the love He has for us.

Sola Scriptura or Et Scriptura?

Having defined Hodos, described holiness, and identified worship, we are prepared to begin taking a look at the various markers that give us direction along Hodos. Though few markers are chronological (i.e. we will be presenting them in a sequence, but there is no reason that they need to be practiced in the sequence that we present them), I think this first marker is critical and ought to come first. It concerns the understanding and place of Scripture.

Let’s begin with the place of Scripture in the life of a believer. I believe that Scripture is authoritative. By that, I mean that it is one of several means that God provides to us to help communicate to us and give us direction. I believe that along with Scripture He has given us the church and the Holy Spirit. They also are authoritative. It is often stated that the difficulty with the latter two is that they are unreliable. Promptings by the Holy Spirit can end up being nothing but bad cheese for dinner or an adrenaline rush. And the church, as can too easily be shown historically, can abuse its authority. But Scripture, we are told, is God’s Word and it cannot be changed. Thus, Scripture is our final authority.

I have problems with this. The first is a rational problem. The assumption behind this is that we are correctly interpreting Scripture. By and large, I believe the main message of Scripture (that Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and rose again so that we might have life in Him through faith) is quite clear and is accurately interpreted throughout Christianity. And apart from this primary message, there are certainly corollary truths that are stated throughout Scripture. However, there are also many things touched on in Scripture that we would like to know about but which Scripture simply does not elaborate on. It is here where a Sola Scriptura mentality becomes most dangerous. Saying that Scripture is our final authority is dangerous because we can misinterpret (or perhaps a better way of saying this is over-interpret) Scripture just as easily as we eat bad cheese, get that adrenaline rush, or abuse authority. It’s just harder to point out to a person because Scripture never disagrees with their theology. If we were to lay out all the truths that Scripture explicitly and authoritatively states, we would find that there are still many gaps that we fill with ideas that too quickly become dogma. This is the problem of placing Scripture over other areas of authority.

This leads to the second issue. Sola Scriptura tends to place Scripture over and above the other two areas (the Holy Spirit and the church). Given the long history of how the church has not only wrongly used its authority but has misinterpreted Scripture, I can understand why some might want to place Scripture over the church. Unfortunately, this idea of Scripture over the church simply does not fix the problem since just about everyone agrees on proper hermeneutics but barely anyone agrees with the theologies that hermeneutics develop. Rather than doing the hard work of holding ourselves responsible for what the church has done and is designed to do, we have shifted our burden of responsibility onto Scripture. Though I may disagree with our Catholic brothers and sisters on some of their ecclesiology, I applaud them for not completely giving up on the role of the church and its authority in the life of believers. Though I understand why the Reformers were remiss to state that the church was authoritative, is it possible that they threw the baby out with the bathwater and, thus, caused the mess that Protestantism is in today?

Even worse for me is the idea of Scripture having authority over the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer. Now, I’m certain that most evangelicals would state that of course God is over Scripture. But, then how does the Holy Spirit work in the life of a believer and when the Holy Spirit does work, are we not to recognize His work as at least equal to the work of Scripture if not even more authoritative? But to discern what is the work of the Holy Spirit and what is bad cheese/adrenaline is no easy task. So it becomes easier to place Scripture over these things.

The statement - Scripture is our final authority - is just wrong. Is not God our final authority? Can He not work through the Holy Spirit, the church, or Scripture? How have we narrowed it down to just Scripture when we can’t even agree on what Scripture says? How is this any better than the uncertainty that accompanies authority with the church and the Holy Spirit?

Each of these must be seen as equal authorities that counter-balance each other. The leading of the Holy Spirit, the authority of the church, the revelation of God’s Word - each of these can and should be sought. The Sola Scriptura teaching of the past several hundred years in many ways has led to a Holy Spirit-less church. By this I don’t mean that people aren’t saved in our churches or that the Spirit isn’t at work. What I mean is that we’ve lost any reliance on the Holy Spirit to empower us. We are so confident of our understanding of Scripture that we no longer need the guidance of the Holy Spirit - we have the Word of God to guide us.

So as we discuss how to study, read, meditate, and listen to God’s Word, it is critical to understand that it must be done in the context of seeking the Holy Spirit’s guidance and a local gathering of believers. We cannot do it without God - we cannot do it without other believers.

In my next post, I’m going to describe a method of Bible study that I have found helpful. It has helped me to slow down and begin to understand the language of Scripture and listen to the flow of the story that unfolds in each book. By immersing oneself into the flow of the story, much like immersing oneself into another language, one can learn the nuances of what is being said.

I Will Worship God All Of My Days

Our study of holiness noted that a significant factor in holiness is worship. Not only is that which is used in worship to God holy, God’s holiness is something that ought to cause us to worship.

By the end of this post we will begin looking at the various markers along the path that will help us in our pursuit of holiness. But before we can do that, I think it is important that we take a post to look at what is worship.

For many, the act of worship is simply the time spent singing songs to God. This is certainly a part of worship (Ps 66:4). But it is only a single part of worship. True worship of God goes so much farther beyond this, as we will see.

Let me suggest that worship can be defined this way. Worship is anything created by God being, acting, or thinking in the way that it was created to. Let me explain how I came to this.

I believe that rocks can worship God. They do this by being rocks. Most are hard, they sit there and do nothing and they don’t think. They serve a purpose in God’s creation and to the extent that they fulfill that purpose, they are worshipping God. That’s what I mean when I say that worship is anything created by God being the way it was created to be.

I also believe that dogs can worship God (cats, as an aside, NEVER worship God – cats are of the devil – but I digress). They do this, certainly, by being dogs. But dogs have something more than what rocks have. They have, at least to some limited degree, an ability to choose. They are not automatons (in fact, very few animals truly are, though instinct plays heavily in their choices). And, so long as they choose to act in a way that is in accordance with the way a dog was created to act, they are worshipping God.

I believe that humans can worship God. Now, much like rocks, they do this simply by being what they were created to be and, like dogs, acting the way that humans are supposed to act. However, as we are well aware, there is the additional component of the thinking mind that allows it to, among other things, reason and feel. Mankind has, apart from the inanimate and animal world, an image of God that has been stamped on each individual. We are not only His, we are created to be like Him.

Thus, when we come to the topic of worship, we must see it as something superbly more than simply singing, though that is part of it. Worship encompasses every aspect of our life. Every action, every thought, every word, every part of our body and soul – it all presents opportunities for us to worship the God who created us. From the very first moment that we wake up in the morning till the very first moment we wake up the following morning – everything in between – is an opportunity to worship God.

So, if Hodos is a pathway of holiness it must encompass every part of our lives. Not in a legalistic or overbearing way – we have not been freed from the slavery of sin to be chained to Hodos. But we are now slaves to righteousness which leads to holiness (Romans 6:16-20).

Thus, as we move further, we begin taking a look at some of the markers along the path that help us stay on track. The markers, generally, are practices that will help us to stay on the path. They will include Scripture (including understanding Scripture, memorization, listening to and obeying Scripture), prayer, confession to others, solitude and silence, practicing the presence of God, rest, diet, exercise, fasting, being filled by the Holy Spirit, gifts of the Spirit, service, giving, fellowship and witnessing (and, by all means, if I’ve missed any here, feel free to use the comments as a place to make additional recommendations). But since worship is so all-encompassing in our lives, we are going to be making challenges along the way to take inventory on how we spend our time, what entertains us, what we think about, what we pursue, and what we dream of. We will be making practical suggestions on how we can live our day to day lives in a way of holiness that evokes worship of God.

Our pursuit of holiness and the Hodos path is not to separate us from every unclean thing. If we follow in the footsteps of our Master, then it will have exactly the opposite effect. As we pursue holiness, it will cause us to worship the One who is Holy. As we commune with Him, we will begin to have a heart for what He has a heart for. If we follow His example, it will lead us to lay aside the glories and blessings that come from a relationship with Him and pursue those outside of holiness. We will begin to touch the unclean, eat with the unholy and speak to the strangers. In short, our pursuit of Hodos will help us to look like Jesus.

What Does it Mean to Be Holy?

It is our desire that Hodos will lead to holiness. Just the word ‘Holy’ has such a lack of meaning in our American culture. At best and for most, it probably means little more than a superstitious pronouncement on something spiritually awesome yet unexplainable, or, even more likely, a self-righteousness. It is these misrepresentations of holiness, however, that makes it so scarce in our day. It is our belief that a pursuit of holiness in the life of a believer will provide such an example of Jesus to people that they will have a deep desire to understand what drives our lives – or, as was done to our Master, they will reject and even hate us.

But what does it mean to be holy? To begin to answer that question, I started doing a study of the word holy. This is barely anything more than a cursory study (see this link for what I came up with and why it should not be considered a complete, exhaustive study), however, some interesting components of holiness surface as we see how God uses this word throughout Scripture.

By far, the first conclusion one comes to in doing this type of study is that God is holy. Over 200 times in Scripture, holiness is seen as an attribute of God or is listed as part of His name. In the same way that we understand that God is love, God is holy. To fully understand holiness, we must fully understand God. Apart from Him there is no holiness – in fact, everything that is apart from Him is unholy – there is no middle ground.

Even today, Jewish people place a tremendous importance on the name of people, believing that it helps to define who that person will be for eternity. God’s name is no different. Whether speaking of His Holy Name, the Holy Spirit, or the Holy One, holiness is part of what defines who God is.

The second conclusion is that wherever God is, that place becomes holy. In the Old Testament, there are four primary places that God is defined as inhabiting. They are the tabernacle/temple, Mt. Zion, Jerusalem and heaven. What is interesting in studying this is that each of these places become somewhat synonymous when speaking about God. He is in heaven, He is on Mt. Zion, He is in Jerusalem, He is in His temple – all mean the same thing and all these places are holy because God’s presence is there.

In the New Testament, the focus of God’s presence changes from a manmade temple to human temples – the hearts and minds and bodies of believers. Thus, all believers become holy by virtue of the fact that God resides in us.

A third conclusion from a study of the word holy is that when God declares something holy, it is holy. Whether it be a day, a building, a group of people or an individual, God calling something holy, necessarily makes it holy. Not only does God transfer holiness from Himself by declaration, but contact with that which is holy necessarily makes it holy as well (so long as it does not make itself or become unclean).

The fourth conclusion from this study is that everything that is devoted to God, used in service to God, sacrificed to God, or set aside for God – whether animals, people, days – any of these things become holy because of their usage in the worship of God.

Finally, a fifth conclusion is that it is possible for people to be holy. This holiness is not something that derives from our own being – we are not holy unto ourselves. However, as we are in relationship to the Holy God, we are able to both be and keep ourselves holy. Thus, there is a factor of holiness that God desires us to be engaged in.

So what does this all mean for the Hodos traveler? I think that each of the conclusions above directly relate to how we walk this path:

God is holy – we need to treat Him as such. He is our friend, He is our husband, but He is also our Master and God and we must be certain to give Him the respect, glory, and worship that He deserves. Though we can share our lives with Him as a friend, we must not forget to bow before Him as the Holy Creator.

Believers are holy – we need to treat ourselves as such. The graciousness that flows out of our lives, especially for other believers, should be such because we recognize that God lives in each believer. His presence is in them. To defame, mock, or dishonor another believer is to do the same to God.

God has declared us holy and thus all we think, say and do ought to be holy as well. That includes our relationships, our jobs, our health, our play – it is all holy to God because it has come in contact with us – the ones that He has declared holy.

Everything that we use in worship to God is holy. This dovetails and intersects with the third point in that every part of our life becomes holy to God. However, it extends this thought to every aspect of personal and corporate worship. The room we pray in, the songs that we sing, the people who lead us in gathering worship times – they are all holy because they are being used in the service of God.

Finally, we need to pursue holiness. God is well aware that we are not holy, yet, because we are associated with Jesus, He sees us as holy. He wants us to live up to the salvation that He has provided for us. A pursuit of holiness is a minimum requirement of anyone who wants to be in relationship with the God of holiness.

As we continue to define the tools and means of growth through Hodos, we must always come back to this – is it helping us to become more holy. Not a self-righteous holiness, not a superstitious holiness, but a holiness that makes us more like the God where our holiness derives itself from.

Synergism - Part I

I thought that it might be helpful to have summaries every so often that attempt to tie together the various posts that we are making. This, I think, will help to pull together our various thoughts and provide ‘bookmarks,’ if you will, for those who come to the site. The Synergism listings will link to the posts that they are summarizing. In addition, if I haven’t captured something accurately, I’ll make changes to the actual post (rather than just leaving changes in the comments) so that the Synergy posts become representative of all our input. I think this helps those who visit the site to get a summary and then delve deeper into the individual posts.

What Is Hodos? The Greek word Hodos means, The Way. Our attempt on this site will be to draw from our various experiences to develop a modern path for people to walk. What Hodos is meant to be is a community of Jesus-followers distinctively living the holiness of God so that others might be introduced through their lives to Jesus. Hodos is done in community but not in a isolated community. Hodos points people to Jesus by distinctively pursuing a lifestyle (including mind, spirit, and body) that will cause others to wonder about what drives that life. Hodos is done in the presence of God as we interact with the world. Hodos is counter-cultural without being anti-cultural. Hodos recognizes that God is a revealer, but that there is much that is left unrevealed. Hodos will, because human nature cannot think in any other way, provide a linear conversation, however, it recognizes that there are few ordered steps and that every step is a step of faith. Hodos will take the words that have been passed on to us and translate them for a culture that does not understand the language.

As has already been pointed out in our comments, we are not introducing anything new here. We are not trying to come up with the new fad or market a product that will solve all ills. We are trying to take what we have learned of God and speak that knowledge, experience, and passion into the lives of others.

For more information on the posts that brought this Synergism about, click on the links below:

A Pathway for Remonasticism – philthreeten
The Quest for the Radical Middle – Mark
Culture - Tony

Culture

Mark writes in the previous post about the quest for the radical middle - being radical because of what God has done in us - and has jotted down a few areas for being radical and standing apart. I'm going to throw one more idea in the ring - and that idea deals with culture.

Of course, the term 'culture' can be a huge and massive concept. Specifically, I think we need to think about the idea of engagement with the culture that we live in. As the Mosaic crew likes to say, "Relevance to the culture is not optional."

Foreign missions work has known for a long time that to impact a community, one must contextualize into the community. This entails studying the local culture, learning the language, experimenting with food. It also means understanding subtleties of religious background and beliefs, worldviews and superstitions. Cross cultural workers study local legends, myths and belief systems.

We need to understand that contextualization is not just a requirement for cross cultural ministry. Rather this idea of contextualization should be standard for all of us as Jesus followers. After all, Jesus embraced his context. And when we look at through the stunning stories of Scripture with the lens of culture, we find that they are pretty serious about engaging with the worldview of the people they are relating to. Paul preaching in Athens, Daniel serving in Nebuchadnezzar's court, and Esther relating to the king - they all were students of their context and culture.

Here are a few ideas:
- Be students of the culture. Donald Larson, in one of the papers for the Perspectives course, categorizes three postures for being students of a different culture - Learner, Trader, and Storyteller.
- Consistently watch some movies. Movies have a huge role in our culture today, film is the dominant medium for story telling. We could learn a lot about how to tell a really good story just by watching some movies and good films give us some great opportunities to dialogue about the human condition.
- Listen to some music that you don't like. We are all aware of the phenomenon where rap music that started in the inner city has permeated all youth subcultures, including rural America.

Mark Batterson, pastor of National Community Church in Washington DC, has more ideas along these lines in a post entitled Cultural Exegesis, especially along the lines of music and film and the dominant roles those cultural elements play in our culture today.

"We've had more than one noted evangelical leader tell us, 'You can examine culture and understand contemporary trends if you like. As for me I'll just preach the Bible.' In many cases where we ignore principles of contextualization our preaching of the bible may well have as much impact as preaching in Swahili to English speakers."

- The Shaping of Things to Come

The Quest For The Radical Middle

Phil discusses below the need for a remonking within the body of Christ. As followers of Christ we will indeed stand out, but what will that look like? Many times we do stand out, but is it for the right reasons? Do we stand out because of Christ in us, or because we are being weird? How did Jesus stand out (there is defnitely a "weirdness" that comes from God in my opinion, but also one that we create!!)? Any path toward remonking is a quest for a radical middle, where we embrace the best of monasticism whilst deleting the man made stuff that gets in the way . . . The exciting challenge is to throw the bathwater out but keep the baby.

Some further thoughts on some probable components of remonking

Community - This is a big one - in our high tech, high speed society we may come to define community differently, but it needs to be a core part of the DNA of remonking

Practiced Presence - Brother Lawrence wrote about it, and we may move toward doing it. Prayer, solitude and silence are all key components of this one

Embracing the Mystic - A movement deep into the cloud of unknowing (tough in our current mindsets)

Taking the Red Pill - An allusion to the now antiquated Matrix movie - We need a willingness to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. In other words, we need to be open to going a lot further/deeper than our experience tells us is possible. (Also called faith)

A New Vocabulary - Old, time worn words need to have new meaning pressed into them, or we must find a language that fits

Scripture - A move away from our reading the scriptures as science books, and into allowing scripture to read us

Generosity - Our grace toward one another must be great . . . We will say stupid stuff and stumble as we move into the cloud - We need to be gracious to one another and understand that we are all just His children pressing in to find a deeper place in Him.

Further in and higher up . . .

A Pathway for Remonasticisim

Christianity Today has an article that discusses whether a Protestant form of monasticism would help or hinder the church. In the article, CT points out that many areas of the church have been infiltrated with the influence of the world. How are Christians distinct today from other people who are not Christians? If we followed the lives of 10 random people for a day, would we be able to pick out the Christians by anything more than a prayer at meal time and a visit to church throughout the week? Perhaps…but maybe not as quickly as we’d like to think.

There are a whole host of reasons why it is wrong for Christians to be indistinguishable from the world. The greatest in my mind, however, focuses on the person of Jesus. It seems clear from Scripture that if you engaged Jesus on a religious topic, that it was impossible for you to leave Him without being affected. Maybe not always for the positive, but you were going to leave Him changed.

Less scripturally based is a hunch I have. If I came in contact with Jesus and spent the day with Him and didn’t talk one ounce of religion with Him, my guess is that I would still leave at the end of the day affected. Again, maybe not for the positive, but I must leave Him changed. Now, if you don’t feel there is enough Scriptural evidence for this or you just utterly disagree with the statement I have just made, then you can simply stop reading here because the rest of what I will say is going to be predicated on that premise.

We are to be like Jesus. That means that if people talk to us about religion, we should be able to challenge them (holding to the Truth, but still invitingly and lovingly speaking to them) so that they leave us affected. But just being around us should cause them to know we are different. Are people coming in contact with us – whether they speak about religion or not – and leaving us affected? If not, then we still are not impacting them the way our Master impacted people.

This is where I think that a remonking of the church would help. I believe that the prevalent influence of the world has infected Christians to such a degree that an objective observer would have a hard time figuring out who are believers. Instead, it should be so obvious that it is without doubt. Generally, I think we believe most of the right things (though there is always room to grow, expand and change – semper reformada) – I don’t think we practice it. Well…let me not condemn you. I don’t practice it. So, my hope is that this blog, as we dialogue together, will help us to take the doctrine that I know too well and begin putting into a practice that is appallingly lacking.

I liked many of the thoughts in the CT article that gave some parameters of what it meant to remonasticize the church. Here’s a summary:

- Remonasticism must involve community. It would mean regularly coming together as a community of individuals that are on the Way together to confess, encourage, and worship.
- Remonasticism is not trying to remove itself from the world. Unfortunately, this became the end result of many of the older monastic orders. This is unacceptable. However, much of the church in North America has made itself so enamored with culture that there is no distinctive. This is just as unacceptable. The goal of remonasticism is to see the distinctiveness of believers again on display, wherever God has placed the person, for God’s glory.
- Remonasticism is not to draw attention to oneself but should be designed to point people to Jesus. Dan Allender in his book ‘To Be Told’ notes that God writes a unique story into each person’s life. However, if the story that we tell others does not point them to Jesus, then we are not telling God’s story. Remonasticism’s goal is neither obsession with personal purity (though personal purity is an aim) nor spiritual pride (though spirituality is an aim). Instead, it is living our life in such a way that it is impossible for people to walk away from us without being changed…much like the impact our Savior had. This impact on people must be done in such a way that when they walk away, they are changed by Jesus and not by us.
- Remonasticism’s goal of holiness is for the further goal of calling others to holiness. The Old Testament example of this would be the Nazirites. The vow that the Nazirite voluntarily pledged themselves to was an example to others of setting oneself aside for purity before God. Remonks would be a reminder to other believers to ‘be holy as God is holy’ – to continue to strive to live up to the calling that the church has been given.
- Remonasticism is not trying to recreate the older monastic orders. There is much to learn from those who have gone before us, so this does not suggest that we will not be influenced by earlier orders. Instead, it is designed to learn how to live holy lives in the midst of the world we live in. There are no unchanging rules in the remonastic path because we recognize that the world continues to change and so our expression of holiness will change with it. To this end, unlike older orders, the markers along the way would be periodically reevaluated on the basis of whether they are still appropriate to the world that they are being engaged in.
- Remonasticism must recover the life of prayer. For some, this will be easy. My guess is that for many it is something that is desperately needed in their lives. This will probably mean a departure from some of the busyness and hectic days that define North American living. If, in its place, it puts times of silence, devotion, and interaction with God, then the exchange ought not to be a difficult decision (though acting on it may be harder than we can imagine).

For lack of a better name, I’m going to call this journey Hodos. Hodos is the Greek word for ‘the way’ and represents the pathway that we are taking as we walk with the Lord. I am also going to avoid the language of older monastic orders that spoke of rules. Partially, this is because of the world we live in and the meaning affixed to that word. But even more than that, rules tend to suggest the only right or accepted way of doing something. When Benedict first wrote his rules the world took a lot longer to change. Today, changes occur in months, sometimes years….forget about decades. So, my hope is to develop a path that can be changed as the times change without changing the purposes. Thus, we will speak of markers along the path that give us direction.

I welcome your input. I don’t presume to have this path blazed yet and so I am learning as I think these things out through my keyboard. Your input into all this would be greatly appreciated. We begin as travelers. Perhaps in time, we will become sojourners. Eventually, if we continue, we will be called to be guides to others who will walk this path.

I don’t know where this will lead me. I’d like to believe that I’ll even follow the path that I set out here. Ultimately, however, I’m not sure where God will bring me through this – my prayer is that I walk neither ahead nor behind, but hand in hand with Him….

Beginnings

Watch this space as the journey begins . . .