Jacob Realizations

This past year Quest has been busy working on establishing our community and our public 'outreach' center for spirituality and the arts called onfortyfive in our newly leased building downtown St. Catharines. We have had many, what we now refer to as, Jacob Realizations, along the way. By Jacob Realization we are referring to Genesis 28:16 that reads:

"Jacob, awaking from his sleep, said “Truly the Lord is in this place and I was not conscious (aware) of it till now!”

Our increasing emphasis on an incarnational approach to life (namely the belief that God is with us, here and now) is profoundly shaping how we worship, pray, teach, minister, eat, drink...live.

For instance, the first Sunday we met in our downtown building for worship we simply spent time thanking God for providing us with this facility and for all the people who have helped make this step in our journey possible. We spent our initial worship time celebrating and dedicating our space, and our work in it, to God.

However, the next Sunday we gathered for worship, we immediately and intentionally got out of our building and turned our eyes outward. We went on a prayer walk through our new surrounding neighbourhood. We did not pray with our mouths though. We prayed with our ears and eyes. We prayed with our cameras! Instead of walking around talking to God, asking God to come bless, heal and transform our surrounding neighborhood, we kept quiet, looking for God’s presence already here.

We paid attention.

We looked for signs of life, goodness, beauty, hope, peace, joy, love and compassion. All of us, including our children, took pictures of our new neighborhood and our neighbours (with their permission) and then we returned to our building to watch a slide show of the pictures on our projector screen.

Now downtown St. Catharines is not typically associated with beauty, hope and goodness but a Jacob Realization was about to occur for many of us. We were astounded at the emerging and blooming fruit of the Spirit that surrounded us. “That is downtown?” we gasped at the beautiful and colorful focal points of many photos.  “Where is that?” people exclaimed with surprise at various vibrant, awe inspiring, downtown scenes that we had simply never noticed before. It is astounding how much we don't notice in life because we simply do not have eyes to see – because we do not pay attention.

Awareness is a priority at quest now. It is our primary practice. It has led us into relationships and partnerships with persons and groups we might not have imagined ourselves working with before. The practice of awareness has opened our eyes to the work of God many of them are involved in – even if they don’t necessarily see it or describe it that way. The Multi-Cultural Center and various Arts communities we are working with are doing a lot to bring peace, justice and hope to others and to our city. The Art of Peace Festival, the Food Not Bombs program, the Host program (which connects recent immigrants to Canada with Canadian citizens to help them adjust and develop friendships); these are just a few of the great things happening downtown and we have made it our aim to plug in and be a part of what God is already doing here, anyway we can.

This is also why we have opened onfortyfive. We have felt led to participate in the grassroots arts movement that is happening in St. Catharines, providing a complimentary yet alternative niche to the Niagara arts scene by offering an art space that in effect facilitates Jacob Realizations. And while we continue to work at helping others become more aware of God’s presence through the arts we are amazed how many times we find ourselves exclaiming “Wow! Truly God is in this (person, group, project, situation, etc.)…and I was not aware of it till now!”

 For more news on how quest and onfortyfive are plugging into the arts movement in downtown St. Catharines read more in this recent St. Catharines Standard newspaper article.

http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2253278