Yesterday we went to visit a friend in a rehabilitation unit. It was a trip back into history – which is all around us, for those with eyes to see, ears to hear.
On his exercise bicycle was a man with who had been one of those children evacuated from London in the early days of World War II to escape the bombing; some were sent into the countryside. Others were sent as far away as Canada and Australia. He had been sent to live in the home of an air force officer, living only a mile and a half from an air base. It was safe, but with sound.
Her husband and my wife work together as deacons in our church. Their particular committee has to do with the needy served at a not-for-profit medical setting. How wonderful: a German child and an English child, now mature Christian adults, working together to serve the poor of an American city.
So often we all feel hopeless, so many needy, so many victims of war – and so much else. So much bitterness, unforgiving, memories that will not let go. It was a marvelous thing for me to sit there and have a moment to remember, and now even more to reflection upon. Persons suffer, persons can grow, mature. Often the churches seem as much dead as alive, and yet. And yet, for those who have eyes to see, and grasp what they are seeing, God is at work. Spirituality surges, hope is confirmed. Reconciliation can be celebrated as actualities, rather than as negotiations that appear and fade in newspaper headlines. Rebirth. Resurrection. Reconciliation. These are experiences to which we who have eyes to see and ears to hear, can testify.
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