“You can free the world, you can free my mind,
Just as long as my baby’s safe from harm
Tonight”
Massive Attack – Safe from Harm (1991)
If you’ve studied social science, then you may have come across Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. If not, let me explain. In 1943 Abraham Maslow proposed that human motivation goes through stages. Each stage has to be satisfied before we’re able to concentrate on the next one. The stages are: Physiological; Safety; Belonging and Love; Esteem; Self-actualization; and Transcendence. Critics have argued that not each has to be fully fulfilled before we can move to the next stage of motivation, but instead there are blurred edges. But, it seems common sense to think that our more basic need for food and shelter, and then safety are going to be priorities before we start focusing on the more esoteric parts of our lives.
What are your concerns this winter? Food, safety…the need for love and community…esteem or purpose?
Matthew 2
13 When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”
At the heart of our Christmas story is a young couple with a baby living under the weight of a prophesy. It harks back to Israel’s expanded story of Moses and yet again a jealous king is so threatened by the birth of a child that he is willing to murder countless children to keep his position. And so, a family flees…back to the beginning point of the story in Egypt.
Those who flee war and poverty now, as then, are working with such a basic level of needs that it’s hard for us to understand it. Why would they cross dangerous seas? Why would they walk across continents?
The word “Asylum” simply means a place free from the fear of seizure, inviolable, safe from harm.
Consider where you feel safe, where you feel in danger, what are the unfilled issues that cause you fear?
Photo Challenge: Take a picture of something inspired by the word Asylum. Use the hashtag #woryem
Asylum
Asylum a place to escape our fear
Asylum a state we call home
Asylum
How can we offer asylum in this season of advent
Stop for a moment
Where do you feel safe?
We are a community of faith.
Strandlopers on a journey.
We can make this world a safe place in this season of advent
By God’s grace we go.
Amen
I’ve been a member of BCFX for about 2 years. I love it. It’s home and hearth, welcome and challenge, ebb and flow.