Easter Season Material:
By Rev. Scott Finlay
The theme is “How then shalI I live?” It comes from a song of the same name. My thinking is given we have travelled with the words of “get up and do not be afraid”, for me the next part is- having done that (not that we are necessarily up, or unafraid) the next thing to ask is in light of that, how then shall I live? What is an appropriate way to live in light of tackling the notion of getting up, and not being afraid?
So, for now, I have attached a the song, and the words for you to get familiar with. It is by Linnea Good, you have heard me mention her before and that she and her family spent sometime in our house when Dheran was about two. I have lovely memories of our time with them. In fact a couple of weeks ago, i emailed her and we had a lovely exchange of recent information.
Anyway we will travel through Easter with this song accompanying us. To help you understand it all a little better, below is Linnea’s description of how the song came into being:
How Then Shall I Live
Many years ago, I was invited by the World Council of Churches Youth Sub-Committee to attend an event in Cyprus and Egypt. The event was designed to bring together young adults from all over the world to talk about what was going on in their regions. We sat in the board room on the upper floor of a hotel for days of committee meetings in heat that was in the thirties – talking, praying, analysing. We sipped water non-stop.
Whenever there was a moment for a break, I would go to the window and stare out across the tops of the buildings of Cairo. In Egypt, the housing regulations are based on family members’ building a home together as they grow. A young couple will move into the upper floor of the parents’ building, taking over and building walls upward where once chickens sketched about on open concrete. No-one pays taxes on their building until the rebar is cut off at the top, indicating that the building is finished. Thus, the tops of all the houses along the horizon of Cairo seem to be endless lines of metal bars stretching to the sky.
Immediately across from our board room was a building under construction. Concrete flooring had begun, and a long 2×8 board had been leaned like a ramp against it to permit construction workers to walk up it, each with a stack of 4 bricks on his head. Walls were being built at a painstaking speed. A family was sleeping under the lowest overhang; they cleaned up their bedding and breakfast in the early morning as the workers arrived. What would have taken one afternoon with cranes and concrete mixers would take months.
Who are the super-heroes in this world, I wondered?
Download Resources:
- Words to sing a long to How Then Shall I Live – anthem by Linnea Good – click on YouTube Clip below.
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