I am a huge Stevie Wonder fan since my youth having seen him when I was about 17 or 18 at Wembley, I would love to see him in concert again one day. So one of my activities during lockdown was to watch a DVD of his 2008 concert from the O2 (Where was I in 2008? And I missed the Hyde Park surprise visit last year for the Church Tent at The Kent Show…such sacrifice!)
Stevie is not only superbly talented musically, but he speaks or sings frequently of justice, mercy, humility, compassion, faith, God, the Church…he has created a welcome prophetic platform through which to speak…his 1980 song ‘Happy Birthday To You’ added real weight to the development of a Federal Holiday to celebrate the work and life of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and so on…
So why am I being so self-indulgent in a short piece of writing? 
Because most of us have a vision we would like to see come into being – as Christians we can see and preach and teach and sometimes experience something of our vision – of heaven; or we see something of Jesus, or we see the Kingdom of God – a theophany – a manifestation of God, an appearance amongst us of the glorious goodness promised by God that His Kingdom embodies and we yearn for. Think of the shepherds on the hill side the night Jesus was born:
When the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds began saying to one another, “Let us go straight to Bethlehem then, and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.” Luke 2:15
And we are not the only ones who long to see, who long for a way of living that is wholesome, uncomplicated and true. But God has given us such insight, such spiritual vision, that He is able to entrust to us some of that truth about the ways in which this might come about and how to help others to catch the vision too – glimpsed most clearly, in fact continually in focus, in the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.
In my ‘First Golden Room’ and all subsequent rooms since is the knowledge that the love of God is enough to enable all of us to live in the milk and honey land:
The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people ….I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering….So I have come down to rescue them …..and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey… Adapted from Exodus 3:7-8
As we teach it, so we try to live it, as we try to live it, so we teach it. A Golden City of God that is blessed with glorious presence, milk and honey, abundance continually, is not so much a dream seen through a holy spyhole but a real possibility as we work together for that purpose, bringing the City of God ever closer to earth. May God bless you with holy vision and the ability to carry that vison into reality…
If you also enjoy a bit of Stevie Wonder click this link to enjoy an old song of his called Visions from the 1973 album Innervisions. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlSXQ0h2Xe8
Rev. Lorraine Apps – Huggins.
Chaplain