mosaic

There are different analogies about the body of Christ - well, the body being one of them. Here's one I read this week that I like, from Nouwen's book Can You Drink the Cup?

"Community is like a large mosaic. Each little piece seems so insignificant. One piece is bright red, another cold blue or dull green, another warm purple, another sharp yellow, another shining gold. Some look precious, others ordinary. Some look valuable, others worthless. Some look gaudy, others delicate. As individual stones, we can do little with them except compare them and judge their beauty and value. When, however, all these little stones are brought together in one big mosaic portraying the fact of Christ, who would ever question the importance of any one of them? If one of them, even the least spectacular one, is missing, the face is incomplete. Together in the one mosaic, each little stone is indispensable and makes a unique contribution to the glory of God. That's comunity, a fellowship of little people who together make God visible in the world."

I particularly like the sentence about how when we look upon the church as individuals instead of as a community all we do is compare and judge each other.

Unfortunately, we're too busy this weekend to even go watch, but next year I'm putting this event on my calendar:

The Idiotarod (http://www.precisionaccidents.com/)

Instead of dog sleds there are teams of 5 who race grocery carts from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Everyone has team names and costumes. There are two checkpoints where each team must wait for 20 minutes (conveniently located near bars). And there are all sorts of rules like no motorizing carts, everyone must be holding onto the cart at all times (one musher can be running behind the cart), you carry the cart up the stairs so you can cross the Brooklyn bridge, no jumping on subways, etc. It sounds like a crazy kind of fun (they stole the idea from some San Francisco guys).