Please Take the Time

Description

I keep coming back to this simple invitation: take the time. After our small group conversation around Theo of Golden, I feel reminded how much life changes when we really see one another. The book holds life as it often comes to us, “blessed, broken, shared.” Yet it also points us toward the holiness tucked inside the familiar.

One line stays with me: “To us, he was Theo the familiar. To us, he will always be the face of heaven.” For me, that names something deeply Swedenborgian. Heaven comes close when love becomes visible in ordinary life. This is “see-level Christianity,” a faith lived at eye level. So we look for the angel in each other. We talk about goodness. We listen more deeply. And, little by little, we help bring heaven here on earth.

That kind of connection matters right now. We live in a world filled with anger, contempt, and distraction. However, something like a small group can become this time of seeing, this time of hearing, this time of connecting. It may feel beautifully inefficient. Still, it can change us. In the New Church tradition, “religion is of life, and the life of religion is to do good.” Therefore, spirituality never stays only in our heads. It comes alive as we gather, encourage, serve, and take the time to see the goodness in one another.