Shade Tree Wisdom 12/3/13

          Here at Living Word a small group meets every Saturday for some Bible reading and study. To get into the building we not only need a key, but also a set of numbers for the keypad inside to turn off the alarm. You know where this is going, don’t you? Last Saturday we had the key, but the member who had the key pad numbers was out of town visiting family.  Well, there are some pretty sharp people around, so, being Lutheran, we did what any Lutheran would do.  We elected  to go to MacDonald’s nearby which had recently been remodeled. We found a large booth in an away corner and had our study there, together with, as needed, coffee or hot chocolate.

          It got me to thinking of changes in my lifetime. When I was a lad, churches generally, at least in the country, never were locked, or rarely.  I remember on some vacation trips stopping at a country church grounds to eat our sandwich and taking a look at the church, open to any visitor.

           How different today.  I read the other day a Houston church had been broken into and its generators stolen.  Many times the copper coils are ripped out of an air conditioning system and sold.  In my last parish the copper gutters and drain pipes were stolen.

          There is another change I find sad.  President Abraham Lincoln formally set aside a day for the nation to stop and give thanks, simply because we are Americans.  This is what we do.  And the day sets aside a time for family together enjoying a meal and each other.  That is what we do, and it ought to be more important than any bottom line.

          Not all stores opened early.  The CEO of one said, “Asking people to run out and shop seems disrespectful somehow.”  Ace Hardware said simply, “some things are more important than money”.

          A holiday shared with family – so rare these days - really is more important than any bottom line.  We ought never be so busy with ME that we forget the warmth of family life.

          And you and I, “Come, ye thankful people come,

                                 “Raise the song of harvest home.”

          I thank God for the day, for being with family, for enjoying hearing how things are going, and I rejoice in my faith, God given by grace, for letting it grow and flourish in the place I am in, thanking Him.  

GPD 12/3/13