Admiring the View

In my job as a children and youth pastor I occasionally get to do a little something out of the ordinary.  Last year I was asked by our Diocese to plan a 20 minute workshop for their revamped confirmation celebration service at Winchester Cathedral.  It went down really well and I have been asked back again this year.  I initially said yes, thinking I would probably be able to just tweak what I did last year.  However when I met up with the organiser this week there is a whole different theme.  Once again however God knows the path before me.

The theme of the service is 'journeys' and the title of my area is going to be 'Admiring the View'.  Yet again my week started off not great with anxiety about what was happening with my niece.  As soon as I was told this ideas started to pop into my head and great conversation followed.  I was so relieved not to have been given the topic of being in a dark place!

I love it when my creativity starts to flow! I came out of that working lunch meeting totally bouyed up only to discover a parking ticket on my car.  I got home to more unwelcome news.  Then there was a moment when I suddenly remembered lunch time - that was a moment on my journey through that day when I was 'admiring the view'.  I find it so easy to forget the moments of respite that I get, and yet in reality I probably have as many of those moments as I do the hard times.

I'm pleased to say that as I am having to creatively think about this topic for work purposes, it is making me continually look out for those moments in my week when I can 'admire the view'.

There was the lovely dog walk that I had yesterday, I had over stretched myself with how far I had gone so took some time to sit at a lake 10 minutes walk from home.  Once the dog had got over her confusion as to why I had stopped, it was a fantastic 15 minutes of peace.  I got to watch a heron swimming, I was thinking how unusual it was to see one swimming and not standing at the edge where he normally is.  After about 10 minutes however he quickly dived into the lilly pads next to him and came up with something very orange in his beak, before flying off to an out of site corner.  An experience I certainly do not have every day (though as a veggie I did feel very sorry for the fish!).

What 'views' do you get to stop and admire on the journeys in life that you are making? How do you feel when you do stop?  Are you ever tempted to try and stop your journey to stay at that place of admiring?  It would be great to have your thoughts dear readers as I try and work out how I can use this topic to help those at the confirmation celebration service.