Clotheslines

"Clothesline"
CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 by urbanworkbench on Flickr

I did a lot of laundry this week; the weather has been ideal for using my clothes line for all the drying. This makes me happy – aside from the benefit of fresh scent and decreased energy consumption of a dryer – I enjoy hanging clothes on the line.

But clotheslines do have a potential downside – they are a line; affixed at two spots. Should there be a break – either in the line itself or in one of the pulley connection points – the line suddenly… isn’t a line. And the clean clothes are – well, lawn décor.

And this is where I see the church not as a line upon which we all affix ourselves; instead I visualise the church more as a web – an interconnection where each line and connection point is merely one of many. That way, if there is a breakage, it is minor, as the majority of connections and lines remain intact.

We are in the web; holding one another while we are also being supported.

It’s a helpful reminder when challenges come to us, and we feel like we’re hanging on a thread, a single line – that God is in fact giving us so many other sources for support.

And, with those other supports, we can remain steadfast while doing our best to repair the damaged or broken connections. For the Christian family is more than one relationship, one parish church, one diocese – it is the timeless assembly of the faithful.

What a gift to be held up, in the web that is the family of God; what a gift to be trusted to hold up, in the web that is the family of God.

(And yes, I realise a web doesn’t have the clean line or efficiency of a clothesline; but we as people are so much more than empty laundry just waiting to dry.)