Border Crossings

Image from:  https://www.lifegate.com/app/uploads/kintsugi21.jpg I am part of a 40-minute lunch time “Connect and Reflect” Contemplative Dialogue circle that meets each Thursday lunch time at Pitt St Uniting Church, an inner-city church in Sydney.  We commence with 10 minutes meditation.   Then each person introduces themselves and answers an opening question, on this occasion “where have you recently seen beauty?” Then I placed a photo on the centre table., an example of the Japanese art of Kintsugi whereby a broken piece of pottery is repaired with gold. I posed a series of questions, each person invited to share their response.   No discussion, just intentional, attentive listening and pausing. 1. As you gaze upon the picture what do you notice? 2. What is evoked within you? 3. How does it connect with what is going on in your life at present? 4. We then paused, honouring what has been shared and noticed, what has shifted for us in our time together. Participan

Over recent months, I have been contemplating what does friendship in the margins look like, sound like, feel like, taste like.   Multiple questions arise: Whom am I befriending? With whom am I eating, sharing a cup of tea, keeping company? Who is invited to the table, to the conversation? With whom do I engage, make eye contact with, smile at?   Who is left out by choice or by lack my of awareness? As these questions swirl through my mind, turn in my gut and rest in my heart I have been challenged by the writings of many mystics and prophets, some of which I share below.   Jean Vanier says “I can be generous:  I can volunteer to help someone living in an institution, or I can go into a slum area and listen to the people, or give them money. However, when I am generous, I hold the power. In my generosity, I give good things when I want. The initiative is mine. When I extend my generosity to you, I become superior. The equation changes, however when I become your friend. Th