One of the people helping our cathedral in the work we are doing to inspire new ways of conversation in our community – alongside new ways of discernment – is Tenneson Woolf (http://tennesonwoolf.com/) who reminded me today that in her book, Storycatcher, Christina Baldwin writes the following:
“Life hangs on a narrative thread. This thread is a braid of stories that inform us about who we are, and where we come from, and where we might go. The thread is slender but strong: we trust it to hold us and allow us to swing over the edge of the known into the future we dream in words.”
Our Cathedral’s annual fund campaign theme this Fall will be “In Words and Ink: telling stories of Joy” We will be learning to tell each other our stories and these stories will be the stepping stones into a new future for the cathedral community as we search for a new leader to help host our conversations.
Jesus came as the Word, not the Idea. Words are important. When we spill ink onto pages, we can cause great harm or great good with the amount of liquid ink equal to that which fits on the top of a pencil eraser. Such a small amount of ink can do such harm or good – can tell story or can destroy a reputation – can soothe a hurt person or write a poisoned-pen letter. So we will imagine spilled ink together, remember Jesus came as the Word, and hear stories of great joy together. And we will raise the money we need to be a good community of faith together. And that is enough as we swing over the edge of the unknown together and do some dreaming in words together.
