The Spirit Speaking in Other Voices

As I am resting on the West Coast this week, I leave you Barbara Brown Taylor’s words of encouragement that we might be open to hearing the Spirit speak to us through the voices of others.

Blessings as you listen for the Spirit this week!

Pastor Amy

Excerpt from “Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others”

“‘I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.’ That is something else Jesus says in John’s Gospel. He does not elaborate, but I like imagining the God of many sheep, many folds, many favorites, many mansions. This is how far my holy envy has brought me: from fearing that Jesus will be mad at me for smelling other people’s roses to trusting that Jesus is the Way that embraces all ways. Because there is only one of me, I can only walk one way at a time, but that does not prevent me from believing that other people might be walking their ways with equal devotion and good will.

No one owns God. God alone knows what is good. For reasons that will never be entirely clear, God has a soft spot for religious strangers, both as agents of divine blessing and recipients of divine grace–to the point that God sometimes chooses one of them over people who believe they should by all rights come first. This is a great mystery, but it does nothing to obscure the great commandment. In every circumstance, regardless of outcome, the main thing Jesus has asked me to do is to love God and my neighbor as religiously as I love myself. The minute I have that handled, I will ask for my next assignment. For now my hands are full.”^[1]