Stirred Thoughts...

Getting on Facebook and finding old friends and aquaintances has got me thinking. I wonder how we would feel to get together, would it be awkward. On Facebook you can keep your distance pretty easily. Do we really have much in common... or have we become different enough that we really would have no interest in renewing acquaintance. If we lived next door, or even in the same area, would we be "close"? Sometimes distance helps us preserve a lie. We can hope or pretend we have the same goals, and share a closeness that is based primarily on history. What if that "history" was less than we wish it was?
Being real honest, I guess the feeling that rises in my heart is, "Would I fit in?"
Since that is a question I don’t really have an answer for, my line of thought headed in a different direction...
Where did Jesus fit in?
The "church " of his day plotted to destroy him. He ate and drank with "sinners". Was he careful of the company he kept? He was too liberal for the "conservatives", surely! They wondered why he did "what is not lawful"... He shamed them with his purity, but gave them lots to find fault with.
But He was also too conservative for the "liberals"! He asked for more than the law did! Second mile... love your enemies... your cloak also...etc.
He was discredited by his own people, those who should have known him best. They said he was "out of his mind". Educated folk thought he was possessed.
Those who affirmed him did not rank very high. Crude fishermen, yes, lepers, thieves, and even those who were responsible to carry out his death said, "Truly this Man was the Son of God!"
Where did He fit in?...
But even more crucial... today... where does He fit in?
That’s the question I want to concern myself with.

Prism Living

prism (priz’em) n.1. Optics. a transparent solid body, often having triangular bases, used for dispersing light into a spectrum or for reflecting rays of light. Etc.
Th dictionary definition of prism is prosaic, at best. It does not in any way capture the simple delight of vivid rainbows landing on you, or spinning wildly around the room.
I have one hanging in my kitchen window. It has been working it’s magic on me...
I have loved prisms ever since I first knew what they were. Some years ago on my birthday, my sister-in-law gave me a couple. (Thanks again, Mandy!) I’ve had them hanging in the windows ever since, and have been learning some things from them.
Prisms need direct sun shining on them for their true beauty to be seen. They don’t look any different, one way or the other, but the difference in effect is startling! It takes strong sun shining through them to reveal their true purpose.
They are truly "receivers", and "achieve" absolutely nothing. They are "being", not "doing". The more facets they have cut on them, the bigger and more glorious the rainbows that come from them. They do not strive for attention, quietly unassuming, they simply transmit the sun to us in colored form. They have no color of their own...
God, make me like a prism.