Every grain of sand?
Thoughts from NTC’s Principal Rev Dr Deirdre Brower Latz
I love beaches. It probably comes from my mum and her Eastern Canadian pirate heritage (you knew it!). Beaches, beach-combing and a compulsion to pick up shells and pocket them is irresistible to me. Sinking into a grainy beach recently, on a brief sojourn to our dear friends’ home in the south of Spain, I was overwhelmed with a sense of love for the world. How cosmic and particular God’s love is. How granular, stardust and sand-grainy… and how milky-way, sea and universe-wide!
Committed to preaching on the Sunday, I was asked to join an Elvis Carol service (I kid you not) where I was to share the wonder of the story of Jesus, the hope we can have, the roominess of God for us, the breadth, depth, height, length of such love. As I reflected and prepared, I felt my heart expand as I thought about what I was to declare. Isn’t it just incredible? To think that God-with-us is in the most normal of life-stuff — from stresses and strains, to hopes and fears, in the mundane things of our flesh — AND in bending our universe towards reconciliation in every way. It’s glorious to think of, and hopeful to step into, and vital for our lives that we learn and relearn that God’s love and creativity is for us. Each grain of us, pocketed and delighted in by God’s goodness and love. This is our faith, isn’t it? That God so loved…
As NTC and her people rest over Christmas and into the New Year, giving us time to inhale and exhale — even our buildings are closed, emails off, essays in, classes over– I am sure I speak for all of us:
Thank you for your support this year!
Thank you for your prayers, care, donations, encouragement, and grace. As we seek to be part of declaring, shaping and living into God’s grace and love for the world, thank you for challenging us, supporting us, trusting us to be bearing the Christ-life in holy ways into 2023.
