Can you see what I see? By Heidi Jakoby

I don’t know if you wear glasses but I got my first pair just 4 years ago. Have you ever picked up someone else’s glasses and tried to see through them? Sometimes things are clearer and sometimes it is worse. Sometimes we may be accused of looking through “rose colored glasses”. What are your lenses? How do you look at the world and are you able to image how others’ see? Empathize with their point of view?

Have you boldly gone where others were not willing to go? Have you ever been at a meeting where you were just stirring to state the obvious and felt you could not because it was not your “place”, “your turn” or maybe you were not confident enough? Or are you a person who has gone into places and spoke what was needed to be said even though you might not have been invited to speak? Well this is a little of what happens in the story from Luke7:36-50  . Jesus is invited to dinner and his host does not greet him with the usual water to clean his feet and the kiss on his face, but a women who was not invited had no reason for being there boldly went in and washed Jesus’ feet with her tears, dried them with her hair, put perfume on them and then kissed them. Who in this story showed more hospitality? The host who fed Jesus and treated him quite lavishly or the women? With whom do you identify?

My nephew just got back form Uganda where he traveled with Engineers Withought Boarders to help a village with their water. I want to share a quote from his blog (to see more about his trip and the team from Tufts University who went click here  )

“Along the way to the village we were greeted by children yelling “mizungu” as we passed in the car, which means white person. For some of the people of Shilongo we are the first white people they have seen, and for everyone else we are still a very rare occurrence and people always stare at us.”

I wonder what the children were thinking on this day. There are some wonderful pictures filled with smiles.

As children of God how do we view the world, listen to the song Through the Eyes of a Child and reflect on how children see the world and how you view your world differently as a child. (lyrics/ video )

In the final part of the story Jesus talks about thankfulness. How thankful are you? How do you show your thankfulness to others? What do you think about the comparison of sinfulness between the women and the Pharisee?

I look forward to hearing your comments and thoughts. We will be skyping Thursday June 10, 7PM EST and Monday June14, 8:30pm EST, 7:30 CT, 5:30 PCT.

If you have not skyped before you just need a microphone, often build in to your computer, set up an account at www.skype.com and then call “bythewaycommunity” anytime during the hour we are online.

Hope to talk to you soon.