Seeing

I challenge anyone to know the ultimate context of a given moment in time at the time.  Profound events have a way of looking quite different with the context of time.  I experienced the joy of a wedding with the reality of hope and possibilities.  Set on a small island in the context of the midnight summer sun, it was incredible.  You found endless cultures, more than thirty-six in all, the individuals present.  If the Spirit of reaching out, listening, and enjoying the diversity and differences among us extended beyond this community, the world would be a very different place.
 
I found myself listening to an incredible range of languages.  Individuals patiently explored the meaning of each other’s words, intent on hearing and understanding.  The dialogue was awesome!  I caught myself watching children dance with abandon, encouraged by different generations, each in their own way.  Even the normal explosions that come with kids up long past their bedtime found a sympathetic home.  Strangers now saw each other as family. 
 
Whatever my preconceptions were, I see the city, its culture, and those that choose to visit in a different light.  My particular context does not really determine how it can play out in your life or in moments to come.  The unique experience occurred because I was willing to step out and be in a different place and time.  It can happen to all of us; now and again in the future.
 
Yesterday’s conclusions may have never been true.  Our judgments about each other may travel with flaws.  Even with it comes to Divinity an old set of questions and answers still applies to day.  “God says: ‘Can you produce your mother's divorce papers proving I got rid of her?  Can you produce a receipt proving I sold you?  Of course you can't.  It's your sins that put you here, your wrongs that got you shipped out.”  (Isaiah 50.1) 
 
We can let go of our fears, uncertainty and doubts.  We can abandon our predetermined conclusions.  We can discover each other and Divinity in fresh ways, yet unimagined.