OPEN AND CLOSED

A niece of mine was born with Craniosynostosis, a condition where the bone plates of the baby's cranium grow together too early. Then, as the child's brain attempts to grow in the restricted space, the skull ends up misshapen. Surgery was required to separate the plates. 

For months after the surgery, she had to wear a protective helmet to prevent accidental damage to her brain since it was (temporarily) not fully protected.

Now, twenty years later, you would never know she had ever required such risky surgery.

Author Rebecca Solnit writes,

"Human infants are born with craniums made up of four plates that have not yet knit together into a solid dome so that their heads can compress to fit through the birth canal, so that the brain within can then expand. The seams of these plates are intricate, like fingers interlaced, like the meander of arctic rivers across tundra."

"The skull quadruples in size in the first few years, and if the bones knit together too soon, they restrict the growth of the brain; and if they don't knit at all the brain remains unprotected." 

"Open enough to grow and closed enough to hold together is what a life must also be." 

It seems to me that the same could be said about what our faith must be: "Open enough to grow and closed enough to hold together".

And, on a larger scale, what our churches should be.