A card, a bottle and proverbial "merci"

I returned to my office one day this week to find a card and gifts on my chair - wine, chocolate and some carefully chosen words. I'm very lucky to have such good friends and colleagues - even luckier for my waistline that several others joined in eating the chocolate. The local organic wine was perfect for Dr B's gentle birthday supper.
On the card was a personal message framed by two proverbs:
"The cleverness of one alone is a shallow well that dries up." (From Uganda)
"Where a woman reigns the streams run uphill." (From Ethiopia)

I've been thinking deeply and painfully this week about how getting human beings to work together is one of the most difficult yet rewarding things. Human beings are social animals yet sharing and being and working together, how our common and uncommon projects evolve is a kind of alchemy that can perhaps only be called a work of the Holy Spirit. Or perhaps it can only be called that if it works. At events and in projects where things and people "gel" something special happens, together we become more than the sum of our parts and when it all works we glimpse something greater than ourselves, the kingdom of God perhaps.
I'm grateful for those moments this week that I have been part of something bigger, moments where a bit of heaven has been opened. Together our intelligence can fill even the driest of wells.