Tag: #40Acts

Today’s challenge is to share food with someone. Sharing a meal with another is, I think, a holy act. As a single person most of my meals are solitary. I like getting to eat with other people – at FMC when I have lunch with Tracy or the quilting women, when my kids come home or I go to their homes, when my favourite man comes in for a meal, having tea with my sisters.

Unfortunately, today is not a good day for me to do that. I feel very much like a cold is coming on, so I’m staying home alone today in an effort to avert it. This is a challenge that I will make up another day.

Today’s challenge is a (random) act of kindness –
“Wherever there is a human in need, there is an opportunity for kindness and to make a difference. …
So look out for those God-given opportunities to live out Jesus’ command.”

‘A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’ (John 13:34–35 NIV)

So today’s challenge revolves around community – being a part of one’s own community.

I’ve been thinking about community lately, partly because of Google+. There you create communities and circles. But to me it feels so artificial. I have circles of people I actually know but am added to circles of complete strangers. What’s that about? And in the community I’m involved in #5minutesofmyday really only Marjorie and I make an effort to post a photo every day, another 6 or so people post occasionally while the group has 71 members. I’ve noticed that it only feels like community when people interact with each other. When someone 1+s my picture I know they’ve looked at it. When someone leaves a comment I know it has touched them in some way – that is where community happens.

I see my job as Administrative Assistant as facilitating community within the church. Helping people to connect with each other, to interact with each other.

Here in the condo I’ve attempted to do that by making a newsletter, by attending potlucks, by doing yard work (which often spurs conversation).

So where, today, can I plant seeds of community?

This year for Lent I decided to “Do Lent Generously”, joining many others from around the world with 40Acts.org.uk.

The first challenge, on Wednesday, February 10, is to draw circles – family, friends, community and wider. I haven’t had an opportunity to draw yet, but have spent some time thinking about these circles, how they overlap, holding them in prayer. I have used my prayer beads to name and pray for those circles too.

And here is another reflection specifically for Ash Wednesday that I found particularly helpful “on not giving up too easily” from the Jesuits in Britain.