Colouring In The
Outline
Acts 17:22-31 John14:15-21
I once took Holy
Communion to a care home where the residents were quite frail.
At the conclusion of
our gentle little service, those who attended made their way slowly from the
lounge to a nearby table in the next room
where colouring pencils had been set out for them alongside
big colouring books.
I noticed how they sat
down with such quietness and focus and with what concentration and satisfaction,
they began to colour in the pictures.
I remember regretting
that I did not have time to stay, draw up a chair and join them in the task.
A few years ago now, I
helped organise a week long prayer vigil where people could come and go into a
beautifully arranged prayer room with all sorts of aids to prayer to explore.
There were candles
to light, pictures to look at, stones to touch and music to listen to. There
was also a little corner for children where colouring pencils and outlines
of bible stories had been laid out. I was alone in the prayer room in the
middle of the might and, by passing the more adult activities, I sat at the
children’s table and coloured in a picture of the feeding of the five thousand
and added the finished article to a growing display on the board. I did not
however add my name nor my age.
It felt strangely satisfying
and intensely spiritual.
Perhaps it’s because
we live in a world where nothing ever really gets finished, that to complete
the perfect colouring in of a picture brings such satisfaction.
I also think it’s a
counter to the amount of time we live our lives in black and white outline only
and rarely get to the multi coloured heart of the matter.
We know there is a
broad direction in which our life should go, but we never get time to put in
the detail.
We know there are
certain impulses which stir our hearts and attract our convictions – but we do
not name them easily nor make the link between these things and God.
As Paul walked through
the streets of
He seized upon the
altar to an unknown God and began to explain to the people that it was this God
that he had come to proclaim to them – to take their lives from a broad outline
of goodness into the rich colouring of life in the Spirit given through Jesus.
Here is the task of
the church for today.
Amidst all that
perplexes us and worries us about the direction of our world, there is a
tremendous amount of goodness in outline. Of a desire to make things better and
see goodness and peace triumph, but every fresh attempt seems to get scuppered
and contaminated because we have become content with black and white outline
only.
Here is the task for
us as individual Christians seeking to be good disciples.
Discovering the way the
Holy Spirit wants to be at work in us means we have to go beyond the broad
outlines the bold strokes of faith, hope and love need to be coloured in by the
Spirit and we each have a different shade to offer.
I’ve got the green,
but could I borrow your red, and when I’ve finished with the blue would you
like to borrow it.
This is the
Counsellor, the advocate, which Jesus speaks of in our Gospel reading.
The very power at our
elbow who will direct this creativity within us to produce a multi coloured
kingdom which will attract the many who are searching
for it within the black and white outlines of their lives.
I am moved quite
deeply when I think of those care home residents who moved so naturally from
receiving the bread and wine of the Eucharist to the colouring in of pictures
with the many coloured pencils given to them and in a strange way, I see this
as something of a vision for a spirit filled church
RH 27.4.08