Pastor Mick's My Word May 2008
		Activities
	Everyone has their favorite place in the house they lived in.  My dad liked the patio, which was really the concrete floor of the garage that had been torn down years earlier.  It was his place to whistle at the birds, grill anything he could get his hands on and sing pop tunes from the 1940’s, often to himself.  Mom liked any room where the sewing machine was, because it promised peace and quiet.  And I liked the attic, big and spacious, smoldering in the summer and drafty in the winter.           My favorite place in that attic was the window that looked to the west.  I would sit on an old trunk and look out to newly constructed Highway 34, winding like a trail of white smoke through the Nishna Valley, snaking its way to the grandeur of Omaha. I could barely see the cars on the road, but I wondered who was in them, where and why they were making the trip.  Later I would learn that some of those cars carried people who would never come back except maybe for an occasional visit; those were the cars that interested me the most.  My hometown was fine but it never became the only home I would ever have. The will of God turned silently like the wheel of a Swiss clock and it moved my life from there.         We are told in the Bible that “where there is no vision the people perish.”  We were meant to see beyond where we are and where there are no people sitting in the attic, gazing to the west and wondering what might be, things soon to fall apart.  The Bible is basically a collection of stories about people in one place being called to another, ever changing, ever becoming something other than what they were.  Noah, Abraham, Moses.  Daniel on the march to Babylon, Joseph and Mary on the road to Bethlehem; Jesus walking on the water and Paul walking through Asia and Europe, all of them seeing their own vision from God.           That’s why I believe in both the substance and symbols of change.  It’s good to change the look of the sanctuary, the flow of worship and the offerings of our fellowship.  It’s a welcome thing to come to church and actually smell the coffee. It’s great to hear ideas from people on how things should look or operate or develop.  It’s good to have a vision because that means a person is still looking ahead, still expecting and still living in hope.           To have a vision is to look and live.  To not have a vision is to be blind and die.