leap of....

This lovely piece of sculpture is called "Faith", a clay and volcanic stone mixed media work by artist Jeffrey Mongrain. I know my automatic response, without ever even looking at the title, was to think "leap of faith". And how appropriate it was to receive the Image Journal that published the photographs of Mr. Mongrain's works just before this past weekend. That always seems to happen. A theme builds before a decision or a time of change. My husband and I have been working for months to start a Celebrate Recovery in our home town. It's a small place with big needs. We felt the need for a spiritual 12 step program were so obvious (the nickname for the high school is heroine high) that any potential church or organization approached to sponsor our CR would jump at the chance. That didn't happen. We tried and had to wait. Nothing wrong with that.

My husband approached a pastor of one church in town, and we sort of already resigned ourselves to a que sera, sera response by that point. So it was no surprise that we heard nothing back and even some negative vibes through the grapevine. But he tried again, and unbeknownst to us, a congregation member was also working on this man. She was an inmate I knew, a member of another group we attend, and I had no idea a member of this man's church. Without her input we may never have gotten a shot. We were so busy working to even get a chance, I guess I didn't think what a yes would potentially mean!

So Sunday we went to this church. It so happened a guest pastor was speaking, a missionary, someone we knew and a former pastor to a church we used to attend. We went to shake hands with he and his wife, and shake hands with our potential group home leader. The message was taken from the text of Hebrews 11. The pastor who spoke is from Canada, so when he said "papyrus" Pap-I-rus, it came out, papperuss. Oh well, he asked the question, "who wants to be a God-pleaser?" All hands on deck! Then he said, "who wants to be a risk-taker?" Half the hands escaped to the port bow. But that's what I needed to hear. I want to take this risk, in this place, among these people in my home town, many friends and former congregants-invite in the addicted, the struggling, the weak...He went on to say, having faith is not being blind. Faith sees more clearly than anything the rocks at the bottom of the water, the depth of the fall, the blinding speed and collision that will surely end in great pain as a potential outcome, and then jumps anyway having calculated all.

We start our Celebrate Recovery in the fall, barring disgruntled deacons.