>Monday at Merge

>So sorry for not getting a word out to y'all sooner, but we have been busy.
Good busy.

Hey the last word I sent you guys was that we would be dealing with the theme of separation...have you felt separate from us? Yeah, that's my fault, not intentional at all. Just busy doing what I sense God has been wanting me to do. Now, I sense, it's time to blog!

Monday---Separation. In the morning we heard with new ears, the story of human rebellion, Cain and Abel, and the flood. The beauty that we had pictured in our mind's eye of creation in its freedom and intimacy was now shattered. No longer do we see images of seed bearing trees and plants.
Now it's thorns and thistles. Laughter has been replaced with blaming.
Freedom with shame. We truly lost something wonderful in our rebellion.

When we hear these very familiar stories we're asked to ponder questions like, "What do you notice in this scene for the first time? What do you see in your mind when you think of this scene? What do you wonder about? What questions did it bring up?"

Some saw the pursuit of God asking, "Where are you?" Others wondered, "Why is the tree of knowledge and good and evil in the center of the garden?"
"Why was Eve by the tree?"

We heard the story of Cain and Abel and the flood. We re-enacted each of these scenes with some pretty funny drama. More importantly we began to see themes emerge. Themes like an act of sin followed by God's goodness and love. After Adam and Eve sinned, God gave them clothes. After Cain killed Abel, God provided protection for Cain. After the judgment of the flood, God provided a new start and a promise never to destroy the earth with a flood. Sin is always met with an act of kindness on God's part. And if I'm to be like God what does that mean for me when I see sin and brokenness in the people around me?

And this was just the morning! In the afternoon, we experienced and looked again at the stories of separation. We gathered by a tree and considered our own acts of rebellion. We took a bite of an apple and confessed our sins privately to God. We then traveled to a local high school and considered the separation and alienation sin brings into our relationships.
This was a time to ask forgiveness from anyone in the group that we have done wrong or have been ignoring. We also could ask for prayer to be loving in our more difficult relationships. There were some meaningful conversations and times of prayer. Finally the last experience Monday afternoon was a visit to a cemetary where we considered the separation of death caused by sin. This was huge for many of us. We considered the brevity of life and considered the fact that on these tombstones there's a dash between the birth date and date of death. How will we spend our dash?
What do we want our life to look like?

A great time of worship in the evening was followed by some good group sharing. I'll tell you about what worship looks like in Tuesday's blog.
Until then!

Mike