Articles | Book Reviews | Education
A Reflection on a Vision for the Council
by Elizabeth Price
The author provided this reflection for a meeting of the Ontario Multifaith Council and focuses on a vision for the Council.
As people of faith we grieve as we watch the forces of fragmentation at work in the world; wars between nations, wars within families, abuse of the weak by the strong. Sometimes, if we look with our human eyes, it seems that we are moving inevitably toward a greater and greater fragmentation, where everything that binds us together is broken and we are each left alone, without home or support, refugees with no refuge to be found, mere fragments, without purpose or significance.
But we are blessed, because we, as people of faith can choose to look with spiritual eyes, on the fragmented people, families and nations living in the world. We know from all of our traditions that God is the author of integration. God in the beginning made something out of nothing, brought order out of chaos. The book of Genesis tells us that God formed the first human being from the dust of the earth, then breathed his own life into him. We are fragments of matter, energized by the spirit of God. The Bible is full of the message of what God wants for us. He wants human beings to be healthy and whole, to have peace and a sense of significance, to know that they belong.
As people of faith, we continue to be energized by God's spirit to be agents of integration, healing and wholeness, resisting the forces that fragment people and communities.
The people that this Council serves - the frail, the sick and the imprisoned - are perhaps the most isolated persons in our community. The mission of this Council comes from seeing these people through spiritual eyes, seeing that all people have meaning, that all can belong, that all can have hope, that all can strive for wholeness. And as each one finds that wholeness, our entire community benefits.
God's spirit energizes each of us, and I believe energizes the work of this Council. Be encouraged today. Know that what we do here makes a difference. We are working for God's purposes, bringing together the fragmented, healing the wounded, bringing the alienated back into community. As each one is woven back into our community we all grow stronger and more beautiful.
Let us pray:
Lord make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elizabeth Price is a Salvation Army representative on the Ontario Multifaith Council.
Posted by editor on September 30, 2003 10:35 AM