Stroll for YourSoul

Blessings.
Today we continue with our series of inspirational messages that will focus on Homes, as we take time to stroll our neighbourhoods, back yards, parks, or just sit and look out a window. This resource is adapted from, and used with permission from, The Prayer Bench (https://prayerbench.ca/). 
Our Habitat for Today 
An ocean-dweller, the Hermit Crab, carries its home on its back. 
Reflection: In Pursuit of a Home  
I like crabs. When I (Rev. Gail) was a child, I would love to wade through the rock pools of Brighton beach and look for crabs in the shallow water.  The Hermit Crab carry their homes on their backs.  Janice says she imagines them as the monks of the tidal pools scuttling about and withdrawing deep into their shells when they need a break. Actually, they are very social and actually thrive in the company of other hermit crabs often climbing over one another for fun; they are excellent climbers.  
Interestingly they don’t actually have a shell of their own. But to protect their soft abdomen they crawl into an empty snail shell and make it their home, and they stay there until they outgrow their residence or decide to upgrade their shell. 
Take a look at the video to see the rather wondrous home exchange. 
Video: A Hermit Crab
Peace to your house Hermit Crab. May God cause all to be well with you.

Focus for Your Stroll 
Today with the hermit crabs who carry their home, we remember all those that have no-where to call home. 
Those that walk the streets with plastic bags, and shopping carts. 
Those that are refugees who flee danger taking only what they can carrying.
 
Before you Stroll, I invite you to reflect on this spoken word poem, “Refuge” written by JJ Bola, a Kinshasa-born, British writer and poet, based in London.
“… i remember one day i heard them say to me
they come here to take our jobs
they need to go back to where they came from
not knowing that i was one of the ones who came. i told them that a refugee is simply
someone who is trying to make a home.
so next time when you go home, tuck your children in and kiss your families goodnight be glad that the monsters
never came for you.
in their suits and ties.
never came for you.
in the newspapers with the media lies.
never came for you.
that you are not despised.
and know that deep inside the hearts of each and every one of us
we are all always reaching for a place that we can call home.”

When you go out to Stroll, make a prayer for the place you call home.
Look for “for sale” or “sold” signs and pray for those who are moving.
Widen your prayer and think about others in the world who are on the move without a home to call their own and living in fear.  
Pray for leaders and a compassionate response to the intense housing crisis experienced in many countries and worsened by the pandemic. 
 
Peace. Rev. Gail