Ours was not the first item of business at the Council meeting. Another Robbinsdale resident was requesting that he might have permission to have three hens in his backyard. The code only allows for two. So his request was up for consideration.
The dream I had the evening before the Council meeting confirmed not only the message I should deliver but that I should also sing a song, and not be concerned about time.
So I finished my address with these words,
“Tomorrow, Hilary and I are blessed to fly back to Belfast and enjoy 5 weeks of wonderful Irish hospitality in the homes of family and friends who share, our way of life… I wish we could take you all with us!
We have paid our fine and are eager to continue as law abiding residents in Robbinsdale, but if the codes of the city conflict with God’s law that reflects his nature of generous and unconditional love for all people, and compels us to show his warm welcome to whoever he might send to our door, then we must choose to obey the higher law.
When we return from Ireland, if the City is still not able to offer us any other option, that would mean we could continue our way of life in the Big Green House, then we will likely instruct the realtor who valued it this morning to put it on the market.”
Then I asked the Mayor if I might sing. He said, “I’m always game for ‘a first’! Go ahead.” This is the song I then sang:
Ben said “The atmosphere changed.” It was as if the Spirit of Grace flowed in to lift us all above the letter of the law!
The Councillors took turns to speak.
The first laughingly said it was the first City Council meeting he’d been at where he felt he should have bought a ticket to get in : – )
Another acknowledged that this code didn’t make sense in our case. “Some of us have houses not much bigger than 800 square feet!!”
The longest standing councillor, opened his comments with, “You two are living saints! I agree with everything you said.”
In the end the Mayor smilingly said to us, “Go on to Ireland, – and enjoy your holiday!”
I turned to see the man with the hens get up to leave. On the back of his shirt were the words “King of Grace School.”
I remembered Jesus words when as a mother he wept over the city of Jerusalem’s hard heartedness, “How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me.” (Lk.13:34)
Jesus came full of both “grace and truth.” (Jn.1:14) God first revealed himself to Abraham as El Shaddai, “the mighty breasted one” and only subsequently to Moses as Yahweh, for ‘the mother’ comes first to bring to birth and with ‘grace’ to nurture, then “the father disciplines the son in whom he delights.” (Prov. 3:12) following up with training in ‘truth,’
I had been speaking about the Robbinsdale Queens – these three mother hens embodying the ‘Mother Heart’ of God
……..we had all been in the School of ‘The King of Grace’!
I believe this was also an hour of visitation for the city of Robbinsdale, but unlike Jerusalem it seemed they had not missed their opportunity but their hearts were responding to the ‘King of Grace’ in the midst!