Small Fry

The summer semester on Kwantlen’s Surrey campus has been quiet, but has generally had a bit of a buzz of students and staff making their way through their various tasks. Today for some reason, though, the campus has seemed utterly empty. A student who stopped by said that his class which is usually 15 people had dropped to just 3.

This was my first week of hosting a Multi-Faith Centre Summer tea time that has been advertised around campus. I took time to set up the office with little trays of treats and candy, with mugs and water for tea or lemonade. Such a set up in the quiet Multi-Faith office up in a top corner of a building felt a little small, a little unnoticed. I was hoping for a some student traffic and energy, hoping that some of the advertisements had been noticed and a new student or two might show up. 

That wasn't the case, though. Instead I had the privilege of sharing a simple conversation with a student who I have enjoyed getting to know quite frequently. Instead of being blessed with the new, I was blessed with continuity, a deepening of an already established relationship.

Though I don’t always sense it, I do trust that slow and continuous deepening of relationships always carries within itself the possibility of energy and excitement. In fact, with our limited perspectives we often simply can’t see what sort of “newness” might emerge from attending to the continuities that we inhabit through pattern, routine, and comfort.

There was no fanfare around my little tea-time event. Most of the cookies remained uneaten, the lemonade untouched. No one will write about it in the school newspaper next week. But the chance to sit and talk with a friend in a quiet corner of this campus is evidence enough of God’s sustaining energy. I trust that with faithfulness and attentiveness, God can bring to life a new energy out of very small pieces of old stability.

John 5: 5-13

⁵ Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” ⁶ He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. ⁷ Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii^[a] worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.” ⁸ One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, ⁹ “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” 

¹⁰ Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. ¹¹ Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. ¹² And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.”¹³ So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.