Ellie Miller is the winner for giveaway #3. Ellie, your comment tugged at my heartstrings and I'm so happy to be sending you "Falling Free"! Please email your address to christopherbethany@juno.com and I will get it sent your way!
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I'd been thinking about this post all of last week, wondering how to tell you about Shannan's second book, "The Ministry Of Ordinary Places". One day, couped up in a van with my family, the audio book we were listening to suddenly provided me with the perfect picture of the message and heart Shannan is sharing with the world.
"Many years ago, on this very spot, there was a beautiful city full of fine houses and inviting spaces and no one who lived here was ever in a hurry. The streets were full of wonderful things to see and the people who lived here often stopped to look at them."
"Didn't they have any place to go?" asked Milo.
"To be sure!" continued Alec. "But as you know, the most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what's in between, and they took great pleasure in doing just that.
"Then one day, someone discovered that if you walked as fast as possible, and looked at nothing but your shoes, you'd arrive at your destination much more quickly. Soon everyone was doing it. They all rushed down the avenues and hurried along the boulevards, seeing nothing of the wonder and beauty of their city as they went...
"No one paid any attention to how things looked, and as they moved faster and faster, everything grew uglier and dirtier. And as everything grew uglier and dirtier, they moved faster and faster and at last a very strange thing began to happen. Because nobody cared, the city slowly began to disappear. Day by day the buildings grew fainter and fainter and the streets faded away until at last it was entirely invisible and there was nothing to see at all."
"What did they do?" asked the Humbug...
"Nothing at all," continued Alec. "They went right on living just as they'd always done, in houses they could no longer see, on the streets which had vanished, because nobody had noticed a thing. And that's the way they've lived to this very day."
"Hasn't anyone told them? asked Milo.
"It doesn't do any good," Alec replied. "For they can never see what they're in too much of a hurry to look for."
~excerpt from The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
This is the eye-opening truth Shannan is trying to tell us; the revelation our world needs. Far too many of us have stopped paying attention to anything but the tips of our own shoes. We've gotten so wrapped up in our own agendas, our own ideas, our own lives, that the world around us -- the sky, the trees, our neighbors -- have faded away. We preach the Bible, the loving and caring gospel, but the truth is we can't truly love and care until we slow down and pay attention to our ordinary places.
In her book, Shannan shares how she is learning to do just that. How walking her children to school has made her slow down and notice her neighborhood; how accepting a gift sometimes does more than being the giver; how opening her home to strangers has opened her eyes and built friendships. How making a point of stopping to listen, to pay attention, has opened doors and provided opportunities and begun ministries she never would have dreamed of.
To be sure, this shift in vision not only opens our hearts to caring and loving and seeing, it also guarantees a front seat to more pain and hurt and heartache than we've probably ever experienced before. But isn't this what Jesus is all about? Isn't this how He lived out His life on earth? I long to learn more about living like He did; about seeing with His eyes.
For a chance to win a copy of "The Ministry Of Ordinary Places", look out your window and tell me what you notice. Come back next Monday and I'll announce our last winner!
The wind moving the trees and that my elderly neighbors look like they have some company.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate reading your blog! You have a lot of worthwhile things to say!
Dorcas S
I see bright sunshine, so refreshing after countless cloudy snowy days. I see bare brown trees and landscape, but the warm sunshine seems to be saying,” Be patient. Spring will come!” I see the road past our house, reminding me of our needy neighbors. This book sounds like just what I need as I struggle to listen to and love the neighbor children who come frequently because “you’re so happy!” We are trying to show each one the reason for our happiness in our everyday life, & show them a better way to live. I would love to read this book...
ReplyDeleteRegina M
Fluffy white snow blanketing the earth.
ReplyDeleteJoanne
Hi Bethany,
ReplyDeleteI see my birdfeeder (which is empty) I'll fill it yet before I leave my classroom...blue sky, brown field, an astute brick southern mansion up on the hill beyond the field that seperates our little white school house from them.
-Karen
p.s. I would love to read this book by Shannan Martin
I see a bare brown tree and beyond it, the green pasture and the neighbors' row of evergreens. There are puddles in the driveway and snow flurries swirling around in the air.
ReplyDeleteFrom my window I see stars dotting the dark night sky and the silouhette of a tree on the snow.
ReplyDeleteEmily
When your email came in I was in the office with no window leading outside. Now at home when it's dark I have my blinds closed. But I know there's a lawn with dead brown grass that will green up soon, and a Crepe Myrtle tree with its branches trimmed. Also I might see an old ugly mop hanging from another tree because you can get used to eyesores �� and not put things away.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I want enter to win because my cousin won your first gift, and I must confess it really boosted my faith in winning giveaways! ����
Bethany this post had me thinking that we should really pay attention to God's beauty,our neighbors etc Because I have never paid attention to things, I didn't even know my next door neighbor was expecting. Until after the baby was born! My youngest daughter said to me we don't know our neighbors. Now that's sad.
ReplyDeleteI just recently found out a family from church lives around the corner from us and have so for eight years! We've been here for almost three but still our neighboorhood is small so I should have known. I only found out because I went for a walk and I heard a child saying hi. Not really paying attention I kept walking and I heard it again so I turned around and decided to walk across the street to say hi to the child and as I got closer I realized it was the little girl from the church nursery and her dad.
It was another sad reminder about not knowing our neighbors. Even the dogs would stop barking at me and say "huh?" and walk away shaking their heads!
So as I look out my kitchen window I see snow from last week's massive snow storm. If I look past my property way back I can see the hiking trail,the apartments behind it, the main highway that leads into the next town. If I look even way further I can see a small part of the school district office though it's blocked by the sheds and RV of the property across the way.
Outside my window, I see the soldiers going and coming home from work, who are proudly serving their country and keeping the rest of us safe. They are defending us against all enemies foreign and domestic and upholding the constitution of the United States. That reminds me to thank God that I am an American. MZ
ReplyDeleteMy children and I enjoy watching the birds that come to our feeders outside the kitchen window. Or we like to point out to each other when the top of “our mountain” is hidden by clouds.
ReplyDeleteYour giveaways look like fun! I missed the first few, so thought I would try for this one. 😉
I wish I knew how to post a picture in the comments, to describe what I see when I look out my window. You know, post a thousand words by merely uploading a single image or something. But perhaps that's just laziness on my part. I love how the sunshine on the snow is so brilliant, and how the orchard tree shadows on the snowy yard are so stark and gnarly in a startling beauty all their own.
ReplyDeleteI would love to read Shannan's book about ministry in the ordinary. Our family is part of a new congregation that our church is starting in the city, and I feel like I could use a lot of help in learning how to live out the truths you've described in your introduction of the book.
Thanks again for everything you teach me in your blog!
Snow coming down, a peace and quiet. I would love to read "Ministry in the Ordinary". To often I forget that every thing I do is a ministry.
ReplyDeleteComing at the eleventh hour...!
ReplyDeleteWhat I notice? What I notice, and what I first thought to write about, are two different things! Out the back window, where I am, are the neighbors that keep to themselves a lot.
But what I see is two of their windows lit up, while darkness lays over the land; and their yard light shining on the trees makes long dark shadows on the snow.
Maybe it's time I SEE my neighbor instead of just thinking I KNOW that they keep to themselves...