Great news Friends! Our book fair is going gangbusters. From now until Easter you can snap up some of the many fantastic bargains at The Hub. I consider it a privilege to be able to help out there. I do so for a couple of reasons. One is that there are plenty of gaps on the roster and cheerful helpers are always needed.
But also because it is a whole lot of fun. The sparkle of scintillating conversation. Meeting new people without a mask and getting to know others just a little bit better. These are valuable gifts that, unlike the books, cannot be priced and sold.
When I am at The Hub I wonder if The Master ever went to the Market. Did he perhaps go with his mum to buy bread and fish? Did he and his mum come home with a basket of pomegranates, figs and dates?
And as he grew older, was it not likely that Mother Mary sent him off to get the groceries where he learnt to haggle and to engage in witty repartee? Did he go tremulously to grumpy Bill who sold walnuts and with a shy smile to Martha who would slip him an extra egg because she knew that Joseph hadn’t got any orders for coffee tables these past two weeks.
Maybe not those particular people, those particular things, but The Master comes humbly, almost surreptitiously, into our hurly burly, our gossip and chatter, our commerce and tedium, our giggling and the boring stuff we just have to do. The trick is to see Him and engage with Him. Most importantly… allow Him to engage with you.
Which is the best reason I know for scribbling my name down on the roster and being in our own ‘modern market’.