Its amazing how many fleeting moments pass us by and we realize that our very being is maintained by the fact that we unconsciously breath! How very few times we conciously stop to take a deep breath for exaample to go deeper when we are in water knowing without air we cannot be down there very long. Communication to me is like breathing … there is a flow of air! How can our communication become a fresh breath of life? Communication requires exercising faith! That includes risks, choices and preseverance, but what about our past? does it shape our faith and so our communication?
We have been back for a week in Altensteig, and its fascinating being in a place where tears, joys, pressure and freedom were tasted! Its a slap in the face to realize that Places do have impressions and marks, yes even scars … a certain street, a corner, a store, a room, a path, an object in a store or even a few stairs … everyday places of our past! Then one day we return to realize these little places and things do mean much more than we thought.
As a visual artist I often look back at work I have done, and end up in 2 different struggles, one that says, I am glad I moved on and another that still has the taste of the emotion and yes even the joy of the leap that I had then taken. When was the last time we did look back and realized you were breathing in life? The Past can be tough, and hard, to look at or it can be good and happy and get lost in it, but does it give us more to live for? or does it choke us and paralyze us? It can be that in one place, friendships are found, covenants made, celebrations uttered and yet cold & hard silence ruled between people!
I wonder when the Almighty Omnipresent God looks back, what does He see? failures or potential? Is innovation about doing things better, or not repeating the same mistakes? Is progress really a forward or upward movement? Or is breathing only the intake of air or the intake of duel for thought? Being here in Altensteig, I am learning that our past can become a breath of life, life that releases faith! if we look at our past, present and future and choose to let them go and embrace them at the same time, we become a breath of life to those around us!
I often catch myself saying: I ain’t the first and won’t be the last … … I am!
I leave us with this passage from Hebrews 11:32-40
Joz