visitor update

The moorhen is still in the garden each day - eating the food I put down for the poultry and bathing in the duck's pool. She is seemingly unworried by any bird but shy of humans. I am so thrilled that she's stuck around. I get a huge buzz out of seeing her each time, so that I don't want to go on retreat next week because I'll miss the opportunity to watch her progress with the others!

I've done more thinking about the issue of the outsider who might pose a threat: The story of the plague in Eyam in Derbyshire and the way the villagers selflessly quarantined themselves to prevent it from spreading to outlying districts is well known. The Plague ended in October 1666. In 14 months it had claimed 260 lives out of a total of around 800 in the village (ref: http://www.peakdistrictonline.co.uk). That they cut themselves off rather than infect others is a story of goodness. They could have run away and thereby spread the illness further but chose to stay and wait it out even though the plague was in their midst. In their case the outsiders were kept safe.

Human responses to outsiders are often full of fear or anxiety. British attitudes to asylum seekers and refugees is mixed but often shows rejection - "in case there's not enough for us". I think it is Walter Brueggemann who has written about our culture of scarcity being confronted by a gospel of plenty. The God whom Jesus enacts is one who gives abundance - 5000 were fed and 12 baskets left over. We have enough and to spare and yet our lives are lived in an anxiety that there is not sufficient for us let alone anyone else and so strangers are not welcomed. The gospel of welcome, of sharing food and drink, the best there is, is one that is so precious to me. Trying to live it out in a poor community, first in Worcester and then in Gloucester makes me realise that firstly it is true - God does give abundantly to those who give away what they have. Secondly, those who are poor know the value of such sharing better than those who have little material shortage.