Dear Inner Circle,
There’s a direction to the way power moves through a room. You can feel it the moment you enter and you see who people are moving towards and who they’re turning their backs on and who notices. Power tends to travel upward, to the people who’ll notice you, thank you, and remember your name the next time you meet. What I see at Wayside
every day is people aiming it the other way.
Think about how formal welcomes usually work. You greet the dignitaries first. At Wayside, ours usually begins with “Distinguished Guests — that covers the lot of you!”
We like to do things differently here, our vollies and staff and visitors walk down the social ladders that exist elsewhere. Our community members also make sure that if someone is feeling down, they are given the care and attention appropriate for them. Love is an energy that flows in all directions. There are moments when there are no ‘us and them’ in this place. There’s only the cup, and the hand it’s in, and the person in front of you who is thirsty. I’ve come to believe the whole thing runs on this — that the smallest act of love, aimed towards the person the world has counted out, is where something real and good actually breaks into the day. You can’t point down at people when you are serving them, you have to kneel down to be with them.
None of us here has a podium in Canberra. Most of us never will. All of us can hold a cup. Every single day, every person who pours the coffee, learns the name, sits with the one everyone else walked past, is making a quiet decision about which way to aim whatever power they’ve got. (There have been more than a few songs written about this kind of power.)
What our vollies and staff find, held in their own ordinary hands, is the thing everyone else is still looking for somewhere else. My heart aches when I hear about the latest political mudslinging, or act of division in which meanness seems to be back on the menu. I’ll let you in on a secret through all of it, I will need Wayside far more than it needs me in these times, and I suspect I won’t be the only one either.
Last week, as I was making a cuppa, someone asked how many sugars they wanted. “Only seven thanks, Rev.” “Is that all?” I joked. “Yeah, I’m quitting sugar.” “Well, try telling that to the spoon,” we shared a laugh and a moment of warmth that we both needed.
Thank you for being part of the Inner Circle,
Jon
Rev. Jon Owen
CEO & Pastor
Wayside Chapel
