This past summer we undertook “Project Extreme”. With the help of many, we improved the look of our facility. It is a wonder what new paint can do! The unexpected part of “Project Extreme” came as we decided to strip, sand and refinish the floor in our Fireside room. We are still not sure if we would have undertaken the job if we knew what pain lay before us. Lots of pain.
It helped that we were together. It helped to work in shifts. It helped to ask for more help. It helped to talk through our vision of what the room could be, if only we could finish the floor. It even helped, sometimes, to call it quits for the day. But truly. The only way through to the end was to experience the pain of the work. Not. Fun.
Today we love the floor. Today we love the room. We spend time together in the room. We have meals around a table. We have meetings. We study and work. We pray in the room. It is a new room that was born from the old. One might say that it has the look and feel of a Resurrection.
Here is a link for the Resurrection of Jesus as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew: Matthew 28.16-20. About this passage, Alexander Shaia writes: “Matthew’s resurrection account is a buoyant conclusion to his gospel. The gospel teaches the words of Jesus the Christ in inspiring, yet uncompromising prose. Throughout a purposeful journey, the travails and abuse of his trial and crucifixion, and even his death, Matthew has shown us a tranquil and loving Jesus. Now, at the end of the gospel, the resurrection holds out the magnificent vision of a world that can become reality if the challenge of Jesus’s transcendent example can be met. (The Hidden Power of the Gospels, 93).
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