Creative Minorities

The royal line of David is like a tree that has been cut down; but from the stump fresh shoots will sprout, and a new king will arise from among these. Isaiah 11: 1

Big doors swing on little hinges; God’s people learned that after their capital city, their temple and their kings were destroyed. Out of the rubble prophet voices spoke . They said that, like shoots coming from the stump of a tree that has been cut down, a creative minority would arise, and would swing history God’s way once again. Jesus’ parents were nobodies, but they had slender links with the great King David. God used them to bring into being a new Person, and a new people, that transformed the Roman Empire. The creative minority of Celtic saints did the same in the period of the Dark Ages. Think of cradle places such as Llantwit Major, Iona, Lindisfarne. Will you be part of God’s creative minority for the third millenium?

If five per cent of any body of people are wholly convinced about anything, they can swing the rest
J. C. Smuts

As we, the Romans of the twentieth century, look out across our Earth, we see some signs for hope, many more for despair. Technology proceeds apace, delivering marvels … the conquering of diseases… revolutions in crop yields … the information highway … that would dazzle those who built the Roman roads, the first great information system. But that road system became impassable rubble, as the empire was overwhelmed by population explosions beyond its borders. So will ours …

The future may be germinating today not in a boardroom in London or an office in Washington or a bank in Tokyo, but in some antique outpost or other .. an orphanage in Peru… a house for the dying in Calcutta …in some unheralded corner where a great-hearted being is committed to loving outcasts in an extra-ordinary way… If our civilisation is to be saved – forget about our civilisation which, as Patrick would say, may pass ‘in a moment like a cloud or smoke that is scattered by the wind’ – if we are to be saved, it will not be by Romans but by saints.
Thomas Cahill How the Irish Saved Civilisation

Make me one of your dedicated minority, wholly given
to let you bring in your new era of love