Pure Gratitude

Yesterday, I found myself delivering a cake to Concord High School.  It was a bittersweet moment.  The cake was an expression of gratitude for the five years of wonderful education, structure, and friendship that the school has brought into the life of our son Matthew.  On January 25, Matt will leave Concord High for the last time as a student and enter the bigger world of services for special needs adults.  This new network of support is a bit scary to contemplate.  It depends, it seems, more directly on the cooperative spirit of politicians and community leaders to fund programs for those who have different abilities and the more vulnerable members of our society.  But that is another topic for another day.

Today, I am thinking about the feeling of extreme generosity that swept over me as I drove the cake to the party.  I found myself tearing up with gratitude for Mr. Bombacci, for classroom teachers, the teaching assistants, for bus drivers, for the principal and office staff, for coaches, and for fellow students who extended hospitality and friendship to Matt when he was new to Concord nearly six years ago.  It has been an amazing, wonderful experience for our family. 

I felt gratitude--pure gratitude, and still feel that.  I suspect I'll always feel this way.  If someone from the school calls and asks our help with a project, we'll be there.  If the school needs an increase in funding, we'll advocate for that.  If another family needs a testimonial, we'll have no trouble giving that.  It's pure gratitude, wanting to give and to give back so that someone else will be helped along the way.

Isn't that what the church should be, too?  Shouldn't such feelings of pure gratitude to God for the gifts of the Spirit, for the hope of new life, for healing and help--shouldn't these motivate us to be generous?  Sadly, I don't always see such gratitude underneath calculated pledge campaigns and weary pleas for funding next year's church budget.  I don't see pure gratitude for the gift of a pastor's care and leadership.  I don't hear hymns of gratitude sung with great joyous acclamation to God.  I must confess it:  I felt more gratitude delivering the cake than I often feel when I sit in the pew of a local church.  Why is that?  What's that about?  Has faith flattened out, squashing and squelching the feeling of gratitude?  Hard, but necessary questions today.

Generous God, thank you!  Thank you!  Thank you!  Thank you for the great gift of relationships that make a difference in our world.  Thank you for the educators and students at Concord High School (and other schools).  Thank you for your presence in your church and in your world.  Move me to deeper gratitude and generous relationships; in the Name of that One who comes, risking poverty and death, that we might have a future filled with joy and abundant life--in the name of Jesus  Amen.

One Slightly Soiled White Stole

Yesterday I had a mini crisis.  I needed my white stole, one that I seldom wear.  I was headed to a formal, ecumenical event where clergy had been asked to wear white stoles.  My stole was not where I last saw it.  I searched high and low in the closet where I keep my vestments.  That search took me back to another time . . . . a blessed memory:

It was Easter Sunday in California, Missouri.  I had been up for a long, long time.  There had been the traditional sunrise service at the break of day.  Then, came Easter worship at Salem United Church of Christ out in the country.  Finally, I was readying myself for worship at the United Church of Christ in California.  When I arrived that morning, the parking lots were already filled.  There were no on-street parking spots for three blocks away.  It was going to be a big day of celebration.  The folks turned out for Easter!

But, when I began to vest for the service, my white stole was nowhere to be found.  It had been on the hanger under my robe when I left Salem half an hour before.  Where had it gone?  Then, at the very last minute, at the office door an usher appeared with my stole in his hand.  Some worshipper had found it lying in the street a block or so from the church, along the route that I had walked after parking my car.  The stole had been retrieved and delivered to me--just in time before the trumpets began to sound for the processional.

That white stole was no worse for the time that it spent in the street.  It just seemed more real, more authentic--more grounded than before.  Once while wearing that stole at a committal in the church cemetery, it had gotten saturated with rain--but just on one side.  It had a water mark--maybe a baptismal mark--already.  And, before that my Aunt Dolores' sister, Norma, had kissed me at my installation in 1982.  Somehow she managed to get a little smudge of red lipstick on the back of the white stole that I did not hurry to launder away.  My white stole, a symbol of light and purity, had made its pilgrimage over the years of ministry.  It was holy because it had gone through earth's sufferings--even landing in the street on an Easter Sunday.

Well, yesterday I panicked, thinking that I had abandoned my white stole in some lonely parish hall after an installation or ordination.  I searched my memory.  No usher appeared at our door.  But . . . then I looked again in the closet, and the old stole was hanging right along with the others.  Waiting to be worn.  It was like finding an old friend--one who has been through the times, seasons, and sufferings of life.  I was grateful to put it on--a vivid, though slightly soiled reminder, of God's marvelous, victorious light.