My wife and I made a decision quite some time ago to live gently in the world. For us this had been a ... why am I hesitant to use the word "calling"? ... vocation (is this the right word, even?). In essence, as we reflected more and more upon our faith and the ways in which we felt God calling us forth we felt this was the inevitable direction. In some ways, perhaps like all "conversions" that stick, it was a slow process that neither one of us can point to a time that it began. We attempted to live this way prior to our moving aboard, and moving aboard has provided opportunities to enact this in certain ways that will no doubt shape the way we will live our lives no matter where we are. In that regard, or isn't something that happened die to living upon the water.
In essence, it comes down to our attempts to put into practice a real sense that the world is full of God's grace and abundance; that God is full of love and wants compassion between all creatures; and striving to fully appreciate (as Paul says) that we live and move and have our very being in God, and that nothing can separate us from this love.
This doesn't mean this is always easy. We still have moments when we are become short, curt or angry with one another (seldom with others). Usually we manage to be gentle with one another, and even ourselves. Perhaps that's the hardest part: being gentle with our very own self. We all make mistakes. Sometimes these are from ignorance; sometimes from impulsive knee jerk reactions; sometimes ... We try to apologize and move forward into more have and love and gentleness.
If this world of ours is full of God's glory, if this world of ours God's first Book, it makes sense to us to travel gently upon it, to attempt to leave it better than we found it, so that we can share it and pass it on to others.
How does your faith call you to live?
Blessed be
Joel
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