At first the effort is made to make you feel welcome.
There are conversations, your contact details are taken and sure enough not long after that you get a message asking how you are. When you return there’s the recognition and the same welcoming attitude as there was initially. Once more your welfare will be enquired about and you see there’s genuine interest in your well-being.
Nothing is imposed on you and there are no expectations made of you. Indeed if anything the effort is made to show that the expectations are to be made of them. There is enough to keep you coming along, after a while though, the dynamic changes. It is not that you’re taken for granted, it’s just that now there’s more of an onus on you to see how you want things to develop. If you’re interested in taking things further you can explore that. Meanwhile, there is a question of substance, is there anything more to it than that – in relationships, in engagement, in everything?
What, however, if things didn’t start that way at all? What if you knew from the start that you were invited to be on a journey together. Not to maintain a machine that presents a performance in a regular and cyclic fashion. What if you were invited on a journey into knowing, developing and expressing in a simple, relational and engaging fashion?
What if you were invited to a journey with fellow-travellers who come alongside you, show you their vulnerabilities that give you permission to be vulnerable and discover the source of strength, purpose wisdom and direction? What if that journey was flexible and flowing, responsive to the issues of life and encouraging and patient in the lows as well as exhilarating and celebratory in the highs?
Where would that end up?
(Photo by Belinda Fewings on Unsplash)
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 