Hey folks…I think this week it’s time for some stories. I had the privilege a few days ago of hearing one of the founders of Christian Peace Maker Teams talk about some of his experiences in the Middle East conflict, and I want to share a bit of one of those stories with you. The story I want to tell could say many different things to us, but my emphasis will be connected to an ongoing theme that I’ve felt emerging in our midst these past weeks; that of “more one than many”. I believe that is a deeply important idea; an idea whose time is coming / has come. I believe that the way of Jesus and the stories that surround it have an important contribution to make to that dialogue, and that it’s important to keep those ideas in front of our community; to keep stirring up our imaginations about how such a value might be acted out in our own lives and in the cultural context in which we find ourselves. I also believe that the stories of people who have had to face this challenge under duress (as did the people in the time of Jesus) have profound lessons for us. So, in the interest of opening our minds, hearts and lives to some of those lessons, we will also be watching a short documentary film that tells the story of two men whose circumstances pitted them as mortal enemies, but whose personal choices produced something quite different from enmity. Time permitting, we’ll get to have a bit of a conversation about all that as well.