A Different Perpsective

This happening has stayed with me over a few weeks now, popping up into my mind every now and then. I was driving with a friend on a road, parallel to the street where she lives. As she looked toward that street over the narrow strip of land that was in-between, she comment ‘It sure looks different from over here.’

As I continued to be confronted by this seemingly innocuous comment, I began to wonder just what it was trying to teach me. And yes, I have discovered that those things which keep repeating themselves in my head, will continue to do so until I take a moment to consider just why that keeps happening.

As I thought about these words and what they might be saying I realized a couple of truths. One, the street was just the same as it had been for all the years my friend had lived and driven on it. Two, my friend was the same person. Three, the reason it looked different to her was because she was seeing it from a different perspective, from a different vantage point, almost as if it was for the first time.

As I thought about my own life, I realized that change comes whenever I look at something with different eyes, with more knowledge, or after a new experience. This is what helps people grow and change. We all know we are not the same today as we were a year ago. I have often thought about that and wondered just what made the difference. Looking at life from an even slightly different perspective, would make things appear different, make our reactions different, make our understanding different.

The church has just celebrated Easter. As I think back over the many Easters I have known, from those as a child that included a visit from the Easter bunny and a new Easter bonnet to wear to church through all the intervening years of Lenten church services and studies followed by the three days of services from Good Friday through to Easter Sunday [that were in reality a three act play re-telling the Easter story].

This year it has been the pre-Easter season of Lent that has been foremost in my life. It started with hearing a sermon that challenged the listeners to choose either life or death. Without any advance planning my next three blogs all focused on possible Lenten ‘disciplines’:

Nudgement~ recognizing and acting upon those things that surprise us or that we weren’t expecting

The story of the Fig Tree~ supporting others beyond the expected

The Road to Character~ becoming articulate about our inner faith

Obviously, unknown to me, this year my focus was been on changing those things that no one can see, on making changes to the way I relate to others, the world and myself. And this has changed, albeit ever so slightly, the way I interact with the world.

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NUDGINGS: a journey into the unknown

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