The liberation in listening

My throat was red raw this morning, and I realised that leading the service was out of the question. Luckily, we have a number of highly skilled 'animators' in the congregation - several of whom I would love to see enter the ministry. I drew up an order of service then left it to Cat, Sophie and Andrew to do the rest.

It was lovely.

Not being able to speak, meant I was really forced to listen. For the first time ever, I 'heard' the conversation that followed the Bible story, without having to 'annotate' it. What a joy, and what a creative and deep theological engagement. We have some great thinkers in our crowd - questioning and provocative.

The story of the Mother of Moses hiding the baby in the basket encouraged people to think about that and other stories of mothers. Without prompting, people thought of Solomon and the two mothers, Elizabeth and others. Ulalu pointed out that the women's voices were stiffled in stories such as the Prodigal Son - and S,Millia bravely pointed out that God cared little for the mothers and babies during the great flood. Clive spotted the differences in the birth narratives of Luke and Matthew's Gospels, one focusing of Joseph and Zechariah, the other on Mary and Elizabeth. Some authors of the bible lifted up women's positions, some did not. We noted Adam and Eve's parenting problems -(one of their children killed another) and thought it might have been because the lack of good role models!

There was so much more. And I sat back and just listened. Most of them will never realise what amazing theologians they are. I love SoulSpace!