a·bun·dance

Our little town of Holzen on the edge of the Black Forest

One of my first impressions upon leaving the Canadian prairies and settling back on European soil was “Wow, is it ever green, and lush, and hilly, and colorful here!” Maybe it is due to all the rain Europe has untypically experienced this July and August, but this feeling has continued these past weeks as I have walked through the vineyards,

Farmer market finds

 gone to the farmers market, pulled the weeds out of my overgrown flower garden and received baskets full of tomatoes and plums from our neighbors here in our little town of Holzen.

Abundance….

That is the word that came to mind.

a·bun·dance, n.

1. A great or plentiful amount.

2. Fullness to overflowing: "My thoughts . . . are from the abundance of my heart" (Thomas De Quincey).

3. Affluence; wealth.

4. Chemistry The amount of an isotope of an element that exists in nature, usually expressed as a percentage of the total amount of all isotopes of the element.

I have been challenged recently by the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples shortly before the time came to ascend to his heavenly home; the prayer we know as The Lord’s prayer.  Most of you are familiar with it and it may even be a part of your daily prayer ritual.  The portion that has challenged me recently is …”give us today our daily bread”. 

Oh that wonderful German bread!!

How often I have prayed that part of the prayer with earnest fervor!  And blessed child that I am, I have been the recipient of that daily bread every single day of my 46 years of life. 

What I appear to have missed seeing until recently is the word: “give us today OUR daily bread”.  Could my western individualistic cultural bias have blinded me from seeing that the daily bread I receive is to be OURS, which implies that it is to be shared with those around me?

This realization causes me to ask myself (as well as you): 

What is the daily bread we have received that is to be shared with those around us? 

What is my “abundance”? 

What is the daily bread I been given and entrusted with today that is my responsibility to share with the “our” community in my life? 

What have I been given that will help meet a basic need of others?

 I challenge myself and you to think about this.  It is something different for each of us, and it probably changes every day.  It could be time, acts of service, funds, empowering others vision and ideas, a meal, a listening ear, a caring gesture, defending or speaking up for someone who doesn’t have a voice, and how about sharing the love and relationships you experience as a family?

So I’m going to try to take up the challenge and make the “my” into an “our” on this “new yet familiar journey” back here in Europe. I hope you’ll take up the challenge too.

Hiking up Mt. Vesuvius ( the volcano that destroyed Pompeii)