[Oe List ...] Moving--where is home?

[elliestock at aol.com]

Dear Listserve colleagues--

Pam's email about moving got me thinking about this...

For about ten years six of us OE/EI/ICA/local church colleagues (Mike and Ann-Nancy Vosler and Mark and Mary Harvey) have gathered around a table for a meal, updates, sharing in some common regional minstry/ faith-based community organizing endeavors, political pondering, spiritual nurture, laughter, tears, and singing.  Last Friday, we sent out Mike and Ann-Nancy who are moving to California (north of San Francisco) in mid May.  We will miss them, but trust they will soon connect with other colleagues in their new home.  This time we celebrated the Common Meal and had a "spirit"/reflection conversation on "where is home?"  Some thought of primal communities of growing up years. Some mentioned different places that have been called home, wherever they happened to be at the time.  

Perhaps, home is wherever two or three are gathered in the reality of: life's goodness in struggle, acceptance as grace, pastness as gift to Isness, and possibility as transformation.  That is a reality that we have often experienced over the years as we have gathered around the myriad of tables of our lives--visible and invisible.  

A couple years ago I did a reflection: The Table of Our Lives, written at a time when one of our staff members was moving from us--that leaving our staff table also celebrated with the Common Meal around a table.  I have shared this with several on this listserve, and we shared it with Mike and Ann-Nancy Friday, as a symbol of our visible table-sharing in the past and invisible table-sharing in the present and future.  I really believe that Table, incarnated in many tables--a place of connection, energy, healing and tranquility--is my/our home.  For those who are interested, I am attaching the reflection to this email.

Grace and peace,
Ellie Stock



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://wedgeblade.net/pipermail/oe_wedgeblade.net/attachments/20100427/c8a041f3/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: THE TABLE OF OUR LIVES....doc
Type: application/msword
Size: 26112 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://wedgeblade.net/pipermail/oe_wedgeblade.net/attachments/20100427/c8a041f3/attachment-0001.doc>