Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places

Yesterday we began our summer series in the book of Colossians.  I am grateful already for the participation of so many and excited for the opportunities for discussion, interaction, worship and learning together.

The title of our series, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, comes from a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, entitled:

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

     As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

     Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

     Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

     Selves -- goes its self; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices;

     Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is --

     Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

     To the Father through the features of men's faces.

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We want to LOOK for the challenge of proclaiming "Jesus is LORD."  We want to LOOK for God at work and we want to challenge our ordinary, everyday living to reflect Christ's work in our midst, which puts us in mind of a theme quotation by Abraham Kuyper:

“There is not a square inch 

in the whole domain of our human existence 

over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, 

does not cry, "Mine!”  

-Abraham Kuyper