Pat Pate
Storyteller, Historian, Teacher, Caregiver
Hello! I'm Pat Pate
I have always been intrigued by the gathering of people.
In my family, coming together was as necessary as breathing. This is where we had companionship, caring, faith, and security. My parents believed in caring for other people. They also spent a lot of time building our family behavior, Faith, principle and learning. Both of them taught us the necessity of listening, learning and sharing ideas. My mother was adamant about communicating without hostility. My dad loved biblical histories and would say Jesus talked with people who judged him and criticized him without "bloodshed," so you should be able to do it too.
As I lived in Christ's way, my determination to learn how to talk to people led me to a determined curiosity to learn how and why family groups, faith groups, and common interest groups stayed or splintered.
Discussions were where we learned to listen, question, explore and share with each other without "bloodshed" as my Faither would admonish. As I grew older and lived in Jesus Christ's way, My determination to find out why and how family groups, faith groups, common interest groups came and stayed or splintered and disintegrated continued to intrude on my journey. This determined curiosity continued to nag at me, (God can be very stubborn). Over the many organizations, I found myself drawn to "peacemaker" discussions and practices. I have used practices with small children in my classes or with irritable, unkind adults waiting at events.
Have you noticed that it is more difficult to attract volunteers to work?
Mission work or charitable work that has people who are staying less, working faster, with less determination to pay attention to the results, or disintegrating in very little Christian community of Hope, Faith or Love. Perhaps, it is a sadness that family gatherings, neighborhood cookouts and packing food for the Food Bank has become a dreaded noose. A slowness in going to deal with "those people'' or that person who you pray doesn't start on "that'' again. Jesus taught, "Blessed be the Peacemakers for theirs is the kingdom of God."
Why make that a blessing? A beatitude that is so impossible to do?
Do you find projects, charitable or otherwise, difficult to gather people? Or are a nightmare to get through an event completly? Or maybe it is a slowness in going to charitable events or family parties because those gatherings have been more of a dreaded noose? Since when did being together no longer be comforting ? As I worked on many occasions, I found myself gathering "peacemaker" ways . Jesus taught, "Blessed are the Peacemakers for theirs is the kingdom of God." What is lacking in our talks, communications and meetings are the ways of the keys to the kingdom of God. If Jesus lived by the ways of the Peacemakers, then we need to find and use them too.
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