Category Archives: gratitude

Every Single Thing

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I was looking for a focus for today’s words when Tom Hanks as Mister Rogers appeared in the movies we think you’d like line of my streaming feed. I’ve seen the movie already, but it brought to mind the Mister Rogers that keeps me company in my work space. I took this picture, planning to crop it down to just Fred:

Everything Is A Gift

Looking to crop most of this out, I saw in this image what I hadn’t noticed before – not when I began writing on gifts, not the twice weekly watering times, and not when I gathered and placed all these things on my sons’ repurposed side table: Mister Rogers is only one of seven gifts in this picture.

Come to think of it, one of eight. I’m going to include the gift of eyes to see what surrounds me as an eighth…

What gifts are gathered on your table?

Once, Now, and Yet To Be…

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The Christmas cactus has been blooming for a couple of weeks. I took this picture before I really saw that many of the flowers had gone by. Hoping for a more pleasing picture, I removed them.

That’s when I noticed all the buds. They are so much smaller than the faded blooms, and they don’t catch the eye like the flowers in their prime. But there they are, the sure signs of beauty to come. How extraordinary a gift to see the promise of what is yet to be, the presence of what is, and the vestiges of what once was, sitting on my bookcase.

There’s something here, gently nudging me to a truth usually overlooked. Appreciate the gift of what was and the beautiful vitality of what is. And, when the signs of what is yet to be appear, take notice and be grateful. Cactus wisdom at its best. If I apply it to my life as a whole, I just might get a glimpse of God’s presence in just about everyone and everything. I just might stop to honor the holy that Once was, rejoice in the Now, and love the Yet To Be.

Lord, grant me eyes to see.

Gifted

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I’ve had them for over twenty years – a gift from my friend, Elizabeth. She sent the set because she thought they would go well with my dining room chairs – and even though she hadn’t seen the chairs in months, the napkins matched them perfectly in both color and pattern.

What you can’t see when they are folded are the frayed edges and the faint stains. They have graced my holidays and my every day table weekly. Every time I put them out, I think of my friend and how her work has brought beauty into my home.

New things have a beauty that cannot be matched by the time-worn and use-worn. But old things have a history that come with them, cords connecting to years long gone and people no longer living next door or living.

Blessed be such ties that bind our hearts together.

This is one in a Thanksgiving series. Click Good Gifts above for more…

The Covenant Within

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Readings: Psalm 80:1-7; Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 10:10-18

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt – a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. Jeremiah 31:31-34, NRSV

I’d put this one in the “too good to be true” category. Imagine a promise of God that the covenant will be written in our hearts. Jeremiah seems to be saying that someday we’ll be struck by a holy zap that will transform us. We won’t have to do anything. In an instant we will live as God wants us to live. We will love our neighbors as ourselves. We will no longer be victims of our own ego needs. We will turn the other cheek and give the shirt off our back. And it will all come easily, naturally. We’ll simply start to live that way. What a promise!

But there’s one word in this passage that should get our attention and help us see that the promise is not what it might seem at first glance. That word is covenant. Covenant is always mutual. It requires action from both parties. What Jeremiah is offering to us is a description of God’s side of the covenant. But there is still our side that needs to be fulfilled. As much as I resist using pietistic evangelical language, I have to admit that it has a way of getting at that side that is both simple and direct: “Let Jesus come into your heart.” You see, that is what the promise shared by Jeremiah is all about—the covenant being written in our hearts. And Jesus is what that covenant is all about, the sign and guarantee of God’s part of the covenant. Our part is a willingness to be open enough, honest enough, courageous enough to let Jesus in.

That, I believe, is one of the reasons for Advent. It is a time of preparation. That preparation isn’t always easy. It takes effort on our part. But in Advent we are more likely to be able to do what it takes, because in Advent we have before us the promise of a covenant fulfilled in the birth, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. A covenant written in our hearts isn’t necessarily easy to fulfill, but it is radically different from the old covenant. It is no longer a matter of following rules and regulations, of obeying the law. Now it is a matter of living out the new reality of who we are because Jesus has in fact come into our hearts.

Offered by Jeff Jones, to light our path to Bethlehem.

Reconciled, reconciling

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If anyone is in Christ she/he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Godself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. (BCP, p.106, 2 For. 5:17-18)

God offers us the chance to be a new creation, every minute of every day. The old can pass away at any time, and the new ushered in with gladness. This isn’t something we do for ourselves – it’s a blessing Christ offers.

Thanks be to God, we respond.

But there’s something missing if we leave it at that. God also gave us the ministry of reconciliation – the joy and responsibility of handing on that reconciliation in our own lives, our own relationships. It’s not an easy or pleasant thing in all times, places, and circumstances. Sometimes, reconciliation is painful, difficult, and at the expense of something we’d rather do or have.

This ministry of reconciliation doesn’t seem like much of a gift compared to the chance to be a new creation. But there it is. I’m going to take it on faith that this ministry of reconciliation is every much the gift that new life is. For that reason, I’ll respond:

Thanks be to God.

The Words of My Mouth

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July 16, 2021

Twenty years ago today, just after eight in the morning, Jared Embrey Fredrickson arrived. For these twenty years, I’ve watched him grow from an infant to toddler, elementary student to high school graduate. That first day, I didn’t know what his favorite color would be, what would make him laugh or cry, or where he would find God’s presence in his life. What I did know: the words I would say and the words I would leave unsaid would matter to him. Tone of voice and eye contact would make a difference; whether I was talking to him or at him mattered.

Words matter, and the heart behind the words matters even more. There are a few prayers that I say because of this truth.

Teach me to act firmly and wisely, without embittering and embarrassing others.

Direct my will, teach me to pray, pray thou thyself in me.

And most important:

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Psalm 19:14

Marc Cohn, The Things We’ve Handed Down, The Best of Marc Cohn

God To Surround Me

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What surrounded me today?  Images on screens, traffic, Ikea shoppers, clothes on the drying racks.

What surrounded you?

I wish I had taken the time to ask for God’s presence in what I saw on various screens, on routes 495 and 24, in the aisles at Ikea, and in my bedroom. But I didn’t.

Lucky for me, God is willing to work with what’s here rather than waiting for the state of my soul to improve.

That’s true for everyone,  including you.

Thank God.

The Deer’s Cry, The Pilgrim, Rita Connolly, Shaun Davey, 1994

Ann’s Colors

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Colors (by Shel Silverstein)

My skin is kind of sort of brownish

Pinkish yellowish white.

My eyes are greyish blueish green,

But I’m told they look orange in the night.

My hair is reddish blondish brown,

But it’s silver when it’s wet.

And all the colors I am inside

Have not been invented yet.

[Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends, New York: HarperCollins, 1974, p. 24]

Ann Fowler picked this poem to share for last Thursday’s poetry reading. The theme was “color,” and these eight lines are all about that. In fifty words (a few more, if you count the contractions as two words), a simple and profound truth: what we are on the inside is so much more than a passing glance of the outside reveals.

Twenty-six years ago today, I stood with my love in a church chapel. We said our vows and began a whole new adventure. I know Dave better than most do, but I don’t kid myself into thinking I’ve seen all his inside colors. There’s a lot more to see.

But what I have seen these past twenty-six years: amazing.

August 25, 2020

Contemporary Announcement (1983)

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Contemporary Announcement 

Ring the big bells,

cook the cow, 

put on your silver locket.

The landlord is knocking on the door

and I’ve got the rent in my pocket.

Douse the lights,

Hold your breath,

take my heart in your hand.

I lost my job two weeks ago

and rent day’s here again.

[Maya Angelou, Contemporary Announcement; Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing?; New York: Random House, 1983]

That wonderful feeling when there’s enough money to cover the basics: food, clothing, shelter. The dread and shame when there’s not enough money to cover the basics: food clothing, shelter. In just two paragraphs and a word short of a full deck’s count, Maya Angelou puts us in that rented apartment.

These words are being lived out by millions today, thirty plus years after Angelou published them. Will we ever learn that poverty is not a moral shortcoming or a character flaw?

Jesus, Saint Francis, and Gandhi all figured that out. I have hope the rest of us can, too.

 

A Great Gray Elephant

A great gray elephant,

A little yellow bee,

A tiny purple violet,

A tall green tree,

A red and white sailboat

On a blue sea –

All these things

You gave to me,

When you made

My eyes to see –

Thank you, God.

[National Society for the Prevention of Blindness, Inc]

God gave me the world when God gave me sight – and touch, smell, taste, and hearing. Through these senses, I discover the world.

But I have to remember that all these things aren’t my personal possessions. God-given is an offer of sharing, not a transfer of ownership.

(A Great Gray Elephant, Poems and Prayers For The Very Young; selected by Martha Alexander; New York: Random House, 1973)