The Bees of Rainbow Falls: Finding Faith, Imagination, and Delight in Your Neighbourhood

by Preston Pouteaux

I love exploring neighbourhoods where the Good News is becoming visible in a tangible way. You know, places where the wall of division between people of difference is coming down. Places where peace, beauty, love, and grace are emerging through the struggle. I’m talking about communities where people are awake to what God is up to in their place and they seek to join in. These are parishes where friends live out their faith together in visible and compelling ways - where loving God, and loving neighbour are as central to life as they were to scripture.

Nobody likes to feel vulnerable. In fact, much of Western society has been built in such a way that we never have to face our need for others, and our connection to the rest of creation. We have taken elaborate efforts to create a world where we can feel like a god. Our food and clothing do not come from the land and animals, they seem to come from a package in the store. We have no need to collaborate with neighbours because our livelihood doesn’t come from growing good relationships of giving and receiving; it seems to come from making good money. We have built an entire infrastructure that fosters the illusion of independence.

Beautiful, life-giving, and heartbreaking experiences shape our imaginations. What takes root in our minds shapes what we see. Our imaginations become almost entirely formed by what we believe about ourselves and others; our lives soon become fully ordered around these realities. What we feed our imagination fills our arteries with adrenaline and hopeful delight, or leaves us lethargic and afraid. Some pursuits are so self-absorbing that many narrow their imagination down to a pinhole of loneliness. Pain and sorrow can be so overwhelming that we find damaging ways to avoid them. We become numb to them. We hide, forget, lock up, and go it alone. The good news is that these places of despair are not the end of the story. What we believe about the world may lead us to push others away, but an epiphany of the imagination may lead us down a new path to see and embrace others with newfound love and joy.

This is how every Master teaches his disciples. With reflexive muscle memory, the Master simply crafts, tends, keeps, or nurtures; smoothly, intently, without hesitation or fear. The Master knows the terrain. Jesus knew the world that often struck fear into the disciples. Breathless they would stand beside Jesus, even while Jesus stepped confidently into the broken world around him. In the same way that a master-beekeeper doesn’t even consider the stings and venom, Jesus saw beyond the invective of his enemies. He saw the big picture of God’s domain and knew how God was at work all around them. Jesus moved into the neighbourhood without fear and taught his disciples, and teaches us, to do the same.

Do I, as a pastor and neighbour, move about my neighbourhood slowly, attentively, patiently, and with a focus to bring life? Do I make things beautiful? Do I ensure that others benefit from the life I lead? Do I start my day intent on leaving it better than I found it? Do I work with others to find creative ways of helping my city thrive? I asked myself, “Am I a keystone person?”

Keystone people may not be the most noticeable or celebrated, but through their care and attentiveness they become essential to their neighbourhood. They support and give shape to the health of their community. Keystone neighbours are life-giving people who in time become so important to the world they help create.

Keystone people are the community connectors, those who see small ideas and bring them to life. They are the eyes of the city, the sages who observe and find patterns. They work to bring pieces together, redeem what is broken, and strive for peace. Keystone people instill a sense of hope that grows beyond themselves, often sacrificially. They love deeply and genuinely, serving with a deep character-shaped influence. They are humble and create a culture of growth, breathing life into everything they do.

Who you are matters. This whole conversation begins here. Our identity will shape the way we step into the world around us.

From the very start, and even before the very start, God has delighted in you. You are not incidental to God. When God was creating and pondering who should be created, God thought about and made a way for… you. He loves, and likes, the ‘you’ sitting right where you are. Even now, God thinks the world of you. God sees someone we look at, but don’t see. God sees someone deeply loved. God sees you as he sees his son, Jesus.

Our identity, in God’s eyes, centres around Jesus. Like a perfect robe covering filthy clothes, Jesus embraces us and makes us glow with his radiance; we are reminded that we are made in the image of God and seen entirely anew. No matter what we think about what we look at in the mirror, the truth of who we are is forever and inextricably changed because of Jesus.

The God who created you has made you a co-creator with the Maker of Life. And in God’s eyes, on your worst day, you’re already fit to start making something beautiful.

In a world where we often strip down anything beautiful to its most basic functions, we often miss the glowing chorus of voices pointing to something more, something deeper, and something that stretches our imaginations beyond what we know. Through my time in the apiary I have learned to allow the bees to show me, whether literally or symbolically, the beauty of God’s work all around me.

The overarching story of God in the Bible is one of redemption. God is mending what is broken, finding what was lost, embracing the unloved, and bringing life to parched land. The whole story is one where God is really bringing the whole world back into right relationship with himself. It is a love story where we soon find that we are characters in the surprising and unfolding narrative. We have a part to play. In reading and engaging the story of God, we are brought to a point, a crux, where we have to wonder, “Am I participating in the redemption of this world, too? Or am I just an observer while God and others bring life and beauty to the places and in the community where I live?”

When we plant gardens and give homes to honey bees, even in our urban or suburban landscapes, we become those who remember and delight in the Promised Land of God. In many neighbourhoods there are those who come and go and don’t care about the soil or the trees, but God’s people bring fertility back to the land.

Whether we are creating grand chapels or serving in simple ways, directing our creativity and efforts towards blessing the neighbourhood around us in small, unseen, and beautiful ways, with a view to the long term, is truly a reflection of God’s work in our midst.

There is more to raising a child than cuddles, and there is more to gardening than flowers. Whenever we enter into creating beauty and life with our eye only on the fruit we expect to harvest, we miss something much more profound.

Our idealism may be shattered when we discover that all is not healthy or well on our street, in our homes, or in our churches. Yet when we lay down our idealistic visions and stop chasing after the end-result we’ve envisioned for our neighbourhood, we begin to see something emerge that can transform how we live and thrive.

When we put the weight of our idealism aside and when we file away our expectations, we experience raw, relational, and complex beauty that lifts up our gaze to ‘see’ others in new and fresh ways. We begin to see the people around us with a gracious love that demands nothing and seeds hope in everything. We become keystone people, learning to live among others in the Jesus Way.

In those moments where we cannot see God, when we imagine a false picture of the Father in our hearts, we react. We feel as though we are no longer sons and daughters, but orphans on the run.

Without a clear vision of God-with-us and a sense of the Sprit working around us, we retract and close up. The pain, guilt and loneliness become too much for us. We cannot carry it, so we cover ourselves as best as we can. We busy ourselves with work and shallow pursuits, and we set our imaginations running after anything that will ease the pain. And those who simply do not have the energy, well, they give up. As apathy and fatalism set in many people simply become numb to life and to their neighbour. They cannot see who they are, who God is, and those who live around them. The strangest part is that we can do this all with a contrived smile, thinking, “This is just how things go.” All the while life piles up around us. It’s an ensnaring vortex that starts when our eyes are closed.

Beauty brings life. If beauty truly is the antidote to the drowsiness we feel in work, relationships, worship, and play, then we need to discover what it means to step into the beautiful; to feel, touch, taste, see, and hear every good thing that God has put before us.

The challenge doesn’t come from a lack of beauty around us, rather it is often our fear of pain that inhibits our ability to step into the beautiful world that brings us to life.

In our fear of pain, we run towards anything that will numb us down. Somewhere in the process of snipping off our nerves and burning out our feelings, we have inadvertently shut down the very things we need to find life again. To see and feel opens us to pain, it’s true. But seeing and feeling are vital to experiencing beauty; and beauty is the lifeline we need. Beauty is the eye-opening jolt of hope, an appointment with God and the world that God created. The aesthetic reminds us that we are not done yet. It’s the dead who no longer feel, but we are still among the living.

In our anaesthetically numb culture, the world is increasingly uninspired by the miracle of God’s image reflected in each person. Instead of seeing the beauty in people, individuals are viewed through the de-humanizing lenses of social status, efficiency, and productivity.

we need a sensuous cognition of God in our neighbourhood. In other words, we need all of our senses to be alive in order to truly embrace what God is doing around us. It is in the engaging of our eyes, ears, nose, taste buds, and hands that we find beauty in our lives.

Jesus is making himself known in you and through you. As you live into who Jesus says you are (even on your worst day) and join with God in the beauty God is creating, you demonstrate the beauty and goodness of God in the place where you live.

Some of our most profound moments with God have happened when something beautiful brought our imaginations to life. Think of a time when something beautiful brought you life.

Three practices of experiencing beauty: Beauty in Prayer ~ The presence of God Listening for Beauty Beautiful Meal

The journey towards seeing God at work in our neighbourhood begins when we posture ourselves to participate in what God is doing around us.

Awe is that heart-quickening, skin-tingling sense of appreciation for something so beautiful that it takes our breath away. It might be small and sublime or truly life-changing and splendidly glorious.

Awe is not merely the realm of children or spiritually artsy people, it is the capacity that everyone has to stand alert and attentive to majestic beauty.

Awe is a universal response to what we see that has the capability to deeply shape our imaginations, and in turn, shape the way we live.

In a world that is home to mountains and honey bees, set with a backdrop of near infinite stars and galaxies, we may find ourselves at home with some small, intermittent sense of awe. But what we look at may not be what we need to see. Perhaps the sublime is not only found in the mountains or even in paintings of the mountains. Perhaps the most beautiful thing we can see is much more closer to home. What if our hunt for true awe brings us to those living right next door?

I’ve often felt that mountains are not the pinnacle of beauty in the world, that they are not the most meaningful source of spiritual awe and satisfaction. Neither are bees, or birds, or stars. I leave the mountains with renewed life, but I return to my neighbourhood and city to encounter the most stunning source of beauty in its most sublime form: people.

Humans, for all of their flaws and brokenness, still carry within them this beautiful and strange truth: they are made in the image of God. We reflect, in some mysterious way, qualities and characteristics of God.

Whether it is a mountain, space, or the amazing uniqueness of people, we do not lack the inspiration for awe. All around us is a world, created by God, that stands on interactive display, declaring beauty, and showcasing the sublime. What is lacking is our ability to see and stand in awe of what is unfolding and blooming before us.

Better than royalty: Chances are you live better than most kings and queens of centuries past. The home you live in has more luxuries and amenities than nearly any palace in ancient times. Your refrigerator and pantry very likely have more variety of foods of a much better quality than anything the kings of France had ever enjoyed. The fact that your life expectancy is likely somewhere above 70 makes your health better than anything the rulers of ancient Egypt ever looked forward to. By recognizing that our lives rival the best lives of the most privileged people in the history of humanity should give us a moment of pause. We have been given the lives of kings and queens, and yet we seldom stand in awe of our privilege.

Our sense of security shapes our posture towards others and our neighbourhoods. How we understand our security and our relationships with our neighbours will lead us either closer to, or away from, the people who live around us.

Like the Indonesian communities dealing with corruption and crime, the solution to our need for safety and security comes not from better alarm systems but from an engagement and attentiveness to the world around us. In a word, true security comes from building trust. When we begin to discover that we need to become agents of trust in our neighbourhoods, we set aside the itch to serve ourselves first, and instead begin to live into the places where God is at work and where life is taking root in our communities.

When we are so focused on our 50-hour work week and all the preparations needed to secure our world, we cannot see our neighbours, hear their stories, point to the places where God is at work in their lives, or sense where God is leading them and us. Our narrow focus on our own wellbeing leaves us with no focus on the beautiful things God is doing all around us. The pursuit of our security leaves the world around us vulnerable and uncared for.

If our ‘sight-lines’ are limited, and we often do not see our neighbourhood as God does, then how are we able to respond well? How do we turn our focus from ourselves and onto what God is doing? How does our security become a secondary priority to the trusting relationship we have with God when we connect with our neighbours? The answer for this lies in our deepest understanding of the Father’s love and provision for us. It is only in taking on the eyes of the Father for a broken world that we gain new sight-lines and a heart of compassion.

When God’s people truly grasp the depth of God’s capacity to provide security and care for a security-starved world, we begin to live with an entirely new perspective and impetus for living. It’s not about us anymore. The pressure is off to try to save ourselves.

A renewed imagination for God’s work in our neighbourhood reorients our lives to a whole new way of seeing those around us. As we live open-handed lives God will begin to unclench our hold on our security and free us to embrace again.

When we look around ourselves and see that the world is actually longing for connections, and when we are able to see beyond our own self-security, we may discover that Jesus was onto something when he called us to love our neighbours. When we step outside of ourselves and engage with others, we may actually end up leading a happier and more fulfilling life.

To accept that God is fully engaged in the tedious, in the dull, in the monotonous, or in the uninteresting moments of our lives is a pivotal step in coming to a place of living into what God is doing. God works in boring places at boring times, and perhaps God is calling us to be present in those places and times so that we might enjoy his presence there.

Neighbours with a renewed imagination for their neighbourhood need to be those who are willing to be where the in-action might be. In doing so, we may find that we are precisely where God is at work in unexpected and surprising ways.

We are called to see the world through God’s eyes, and with his heart. Yet when we pursue unrelenting entertainment, closing off those times of boredom, weakness, and frailty, we may miss those places where God is reminding us that we belong to him. We may fail to see that God is capable of more than all we can imagine because our capacity to imagine is hampered. By embracing the beauty of boredom, we become people who can truly see God at work. And when we see God at work, it becomes anything but boring.

Living relationally in our neighbourhoods requires that we think differently about many of our practices, and try on new practices that could help us engage in the patient way of Jesus within the places where we live. How we speak, write, or care for others reflect what we value and believe to be true about God’s work in our midst.

A pastor is someone who sees the small things and reminds the world of their value. We see the crying mother, the newly-in-love teenager, the broken relationship, or the father who is celebrating a new job. We try to spot grace and hope. Pastors point out the beauty in a world where everything is either viewed as functional or worthless. We teach in stories and poetry, bringing God’s story to life in our own. A pastor is someone who deeply believes that all creatures, all people and places, need to find a resting place. We believe that God is always at work, gently and carefully leading us to safety, because we are all looking for a home.

At the end of the day a pastor will not be known for what he made, or fixed, or solved, or programatized. Rather pastors are most satisfied in how well they were able to tend to the smallest and the weakest, to the hidden and beautiful things sprouting in our midst.

This Old Testament word for ‘keeper’ is used elsewhere in the Bible. It is used to describe the work of the priests as they served and guarded the temple.67 The Temple was the place where God’s people met with God in a particular way. The Temple and the priests serving there were to be a reminder that God was redeeming the world and bringing life to all things. Priests were called to play a role in telling that story in the way they served and guarded, or kept, the temple. They were Temple-keepers, as well as keepers of this amazing, cosmic, redemptive story.