This week the PWRDF is hosting a meeting including folks from a number of constituencies – staff, volunteers, Board of directors, international partners. We’re gathered to discuss how we work and do development in the world, what works well, what we can do better in future. It’s an exciting and invigorating time.
We opened this morning with worship – we prayed for transformation: for ourselves, our work, our ministry, our world. Part of our liturgy involved pebbles. We were invited to pick up some pebbles that were scattered on a table in the centre of us. We reflected on the uses of such pebbles – pebbles that indicate something that has been broken, that has been cast down. Stones can be used as weapons, thrown through windows or at people. Even the tiniest of stones, caught in a shoe, can cause a problem.
And so we had opportunity to reflect on those things in our lives and ministries which act as walls, as obstacles, as those stones in our shoes. We were given time to consider those things in our lives that keep us broken down. We were then asked to write on the pebbles in front of us those things – in whatever language or symbol we preferred.
Then we transformed our pebbles – in their structure and in our minds. Instead of being a separate broken piece that prevented us from living life fully, we piled them together into one structure, a foundation. And we saw that the words of hurt and destruction were no longer fully visible – they were hidden away, they were minimised as the pebble became part of a more important structure.
And we prayed – we prayed that God would act as a builder in our lives, working through us to construct our societies with wisdom and strength, to help us rebuild our world where justice is a foundation in our communities.
I invite you to do similar reflections – what is hurtful in your life, what earthly destructive powers are preventing your full inclusion in God’s world of justice and peace? And I ask for your prayers as the PWRDF meetings will continue for a number of days, and the work of the PWRDF and partners continues throughout the world.
