Why are you grateful for church?
In a word, columns. The spiritual idea of Church has often been expressed by using classical architectural designs that usually include columns. Columns express
many qualities. They are beautiful, solid, mathematical structural elements. They are silent sentinels that inspire thoughts
of simplicity, strength, beauty, trustworthiness and more in all who
pass through and by. Church columns, to me, represent the
congregation. To explain why, I wrote the following folk tale.
The boy
who wanted to leave his village
Grey Hairs, the village elder, was
quietly listening to a boy who wanted to leave his village because it
was an unhappy place and made him unhappy. As he listened, he picked
up a slender stick from the ground. When the boy fell silent, he
asked the boy if he could break it. The boy laughed and snapped it in
two.
The elder then picked up a number of
slender sticks, took a strip of bark from a tree limb, wrapped the
bundle with the bark strip and tied it. He handed the bundle to the
boy and asked him if he could break the bundle. Laughing, the boy
took the bundle and tried to snap it but could not. A frown formed on
his brow as he applied more strength but still could not snap the bundle.
Grey Hairs then began to take away
sticks from the bundle one by one. Each time he removed a stick, he
retied the bark strip and asked the boy if he could break the bundle.
After taking away several sticks the boy snapped the bundle.
The elder asked the boy what he had learned.
After thinking for a few minutes, the boy looked into the eyes of Grey
Hairs and said, "If I leave my village because it is an unhappy
place, my village will be less strong. If more boys feel like me and
leave, our village will be snapped by adversity and become as dust in
the wind. Our families will be carried away like the dust, too. Grey
Hairs, I love my family, but how can I stay in this unhappy village?
I want to live in a happy place.”
Grey Hairs put his head close to the boy's ear and
whispered, “Then change it, my boy. Change comes from within! If
you want a happy village, share your joy. Joy is like leaven, share
your joy until the whole village is leavened.”
In the next moment, the boy heard his
mother call for him. He quickly told Grey Hairs goodbye and started
walking to his house. As he walked, he thought about how when he
would skip down the road and whistle like a bird, some of the
villagers would smile at him. They didn't join in but they smiled.
Then he remembered how each day, more of them would be in their yards
when he skipped by. Next he remembered the day that one of them waved
at him and how the day after, there was a treat waiting on the fence
for him. They all seemed happy to see him and he felt happy thinking of them.
“How could the village be an unhappy
place if the villagers that he knew were happy?” he wondered.
When he was about half way to his
house, he thought about the bundle of sticks. Suddenly the image bundle of
sticks seemed to change into a bundle of villagers, a village that
could not be snapped. A strong bundle of happy villagers. And with
everyone standing tall they looked a little bit like the beautiful
column his dad drew in the dust one afternoon.
The boy grinned as he walk in the door of his house. He had just realized that he didn't want to leave his village. In fact his village felt totally happy.
"Mom," he said, "Grey Hairs taught me something about our village. It made me realize that I don't want to leave. In fact, I can't leave. I have work to do. I must share my joy and let it leaven the whole village. It would be foolish of me to leave our happy village."
The boy's mother sighed with relief and hugged him tight and gave him a fresh baked cake that only angels should make. But that is another tale for another day.
Back to Question #77, isn't it quite possible that the column drawn in the dust was like one of
the columns at your Church and represents your happy congregation standing
together and standing tall?
+ Carolyn St.Charles
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Church Alive Question #77: http://goo.gl/9uQNW
Image: http://openclipart.org/detail/86149/column-by-cybergedeon
