"Jesus wept.” Guest speaker Leah Kostamo imagines it felt "“achey, but good”. It was evidence of his wholeness, of his congruency — that he not only preached love but he felt love, and he felt the commensurate sadness in the face of loss. And so, he wept. (Maybe a lot.)

Well worth a listen, this episode eases us into the goodness, and discomfort, of our emotions, and how they function in our refreshment.

"Once you catch the scent of Joy, it's like everything else falls out from your attention." In the book of Hebrews 12 the writer says of Jesus that "for the joy set before him", Jesus endured the cross, and the shame of the cross. He was moving towards joy... maybe Joy is the very thing that leads us on the path of life — connected not only to our own refreshment but to the gift of who we are, how we are made, and what we have to offer the world.

"Consider how the wildflowers grow: they do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon, in all his splendour, was dressed like one of these... " —Luke 12

This summer our theme is Refresh. We’ve talked about rest, we’ve talked about play. Today we explore turning to regard the present with openness and curiosity, even in the hard things. This one, this podcast, has it all: the sublime and the ridiculous. Imagine this: God is like a marshmallow. Or, imagine this:  there’s a burning bush—on fire, not consumed—and a voice, and an aging man alone in the desert, drawn aside by a little bit of wonder. This is where Anne takes us today. At this moment, in this place, as in all moments and all places, God IS. Yahweh, “I am”. Therefore, this moment and this place and all moments and all places—even in the burning, even in the suffering—are holy, because God is within it. So life itself is the burning bush and our survival is a miracle, and the holiness is that, after all you have been through, you are HERE: your life a burning bush, your life holy ground. What if we took off our shoes and sat with that for a while? 

Our summer offering at Southpoint is a response of compassion to what we've been through. Instead of focusing on something you should do, our summer series reminds you that you are worthy of care, and that God has woven into everything an abundance which can resource us when we are depleted. Anne speaks of children as the pied pipers who can lead us back to this abundance, if we are willing to follow them. This week she speaks with Colin and David about their profound commitment to dive into play with their daughter, as a response of compassion to joining her in her child's world, instead of expecting her to join them in their adult world.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” — Matthew 11: 28-30 

Jesus reveals for us more clearly than anyone or anything else who God is. “Come to me. I will give you rest.” Rest is a gift of God, an expression of God’s loving kindness and compassion towards us.

To launch our summer series, "Refresh", Brent Unrau delves into the gift of becoming like child. Starting with Mark 10:13-16, Brent weaves in reflections from being a grandparent and draws upon The Hummingbird, a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye and an excerpt from Erling Kagge's Walking. One Step at a Time. And, in case you miss it, he also manages an allusion to running shoes, from Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine.

“The world is big and I want to have a look at it before it gets dark.”

—John Muir

Humans tend to cling to their customs — their ways of being and believing and thinking. When we come up against “difference” — people or ideas offering a fresh voice, or a fresh take on things — how do we handle our encounter with that which risks influencing our beliefs and behaviour?

Guest speaker Pastor Lee Kosa of Sanctuary Church (Delta, BC) examines belief, belonging and mutual transformation, drawing on Acts 17:22-31 to explore what Spirit-inspired encounter with fresh voices looks like for Jesus-followers.

Join us today as Rev David Morrison continues our Easter Season theme "Fresh". (The sound quality is at times a little muddy, so you may like to increase the volume. Apologies!)

Love won’t stay hidden in abstraction. One way or another, love will show up in the particularities of time, space, words, and deeds. 

In Jesus, love showed up so concretely and with such great specificity, that it seems to be his form of art.

When love showed up in Jesus, something broke open, something fresh emerged. That breaking open and fresh emergence through the power of love was the coming of the kingdom, which offered everyone a new way of being. A new way of seeing. A new way of acting. An alternative reality to the ways of Empire, with its protective social hierarchy, and the ways of Religion, with its protective spiritual hierarchy.
After Jesus died, love showed up among the early disciples, too. We see this in Acts 6. Violence was the greatest coercive power known to humankind. With violence you could build an empire, snuff out your enemies, subdue social unrest, punish lawbreakers, silence dissident voices, and control people with fear and intimidation. It was into this container of violence, as Stephen was about to be stoned, that love showed up again. Jesus, killed by violence yet very much alive, joined Stephen within the crucible of suffering. 
And when love shows up, old patterns break open and new life emerges.