Sitting at a Luke 10 table in Cyberspace

Paul writes - One of the things that recently struck me as I recently thought about Luke 10:1-12 was the significance of one of a number of “tables” (Lk. 10:7) that I gather around – it’s a ‘table’ of Christian bloggers in Western Culture.

I ‘go’ and I sit, “without purse or bag or sandals” (Lk. 10:4). I “go” vulnerably and trustingly; always willing to have my own dreams, hopes, and certainties made richer and deeper through my being in the company of and “open” to the “other”.

My ‘posture’ at the table is one of being willing to lay, on the table, the things that I bring and offer, in order that “we” (with all that we each uniquely offer and bring with us) might, together, discover God’s future among us. “No purse or bag or sandals” speaks to me, as I sit at this cyber-table in Western Culture, of being willing to bring who I am and what I offer, BUT not in order to privilege my stories, my dreams, my practical response etc over those offers by the other(s). To do so would to “close” down the possibilities of our discerning (together) God and God’s invitations for each of us in to join in on what God is doing and wanting to do, in our own national and local contexts.  

At this table, I get to sit, to listen in on, and from time-to-time, to add my own voice and observations. This table and the spiritual practice of blogging allow me to share something of my own story and my own dreams. I get to share my journey. I get to find God in the most interesting places and in the most surprising ways. I get to have my own story and my own journey enriched, critiqued, and (sometimes) affirmed.

And, as I sit and listen, as I “eat and drink what is offered” (Lk. 10:7), as I click on hyperlinks, as I follow what seems to me like the “white rabbit”; as I “eat and drink what is offered”, I’m resourced, nourished, and in some cases transformed through this table fellowship.

The wonderful mystery too, is that as I sit and share at this table, as the Spirit blows where he Spirit will, and as this table remains “open” to others, to casual passers by and to those that want to sit a while, I wonder, perhaps, if they have been “sent” by Jesus (Lk 10:1). The creative, creating, liberating and transforming Spirit blows to the four corners of the earth a ‘leaf’, a ‘seed’, an image, a word, a metaphor; perhaps a poem, a reflection, new hope, a song, an e-mail, a movie-clip, an Mp3 into the open heart and hands of the often unseen and unknown “other” whose extending of shalom is welcomed and returned from a table in cyberspace.

Comments

[len]

Great reflection Paul, there are many lenses .. and many tables :)

[bob carlton]

what a glorious post, paul

i was in a mtg recently when someone said:

The urge is toward neatness, clean, tight, neat lines in business--and what we are asking is for people to walk (even run!) toward messiness, chaos, those edges where real learning (and real relationship) take place.

your post fleshes that out in a gorgeous theological construct