Taking Time to Reflect – August 28, 2022

Scripture:    Revelation 21: 22-26     “I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.

When we begin to broaden our experience of lands and peoples in our travel, or in our own towns and cities, we may move through a personal crisis if the plurality of religious thought and practice has not come into close view in our lives before. And yet, if we continue to reflect and open, what feels so different may not be as far from us as we first imagined. The light we seek and life-sustaining river that runs through the “Kin-dom” of God is full of common themes across religions: peaceful coexistence, food and shelter, love and compassion for those suffering and oppressed. How can deeper reflection about our own hesitation to connect to the wider human family free us to explore more possibilities for a better world?