Last Sunday I aimed to finally attend an ‘adult’ sunday school class at WPC for the first time. The class was about passing the heritage of our faith on to our kids. As often is the case, I had much to say but also, there was much to listen to. One of the moments of meaning was meeting a couple - Gary and Faye. Also in the class was a couple named Catherine and Ken whom I didn’t meet formally. Both the couples are in an older season of life and there is synchronicity in meeting them, more on that later.
After class, our church was having an auction and lunch. We stayed and had lunch in/at the auction and happened to sit at Gary and Faye’s table. They got to meet our kids, we chatted a bit and got to know a bit about each other. They are a very nice and gentle spirited couple.
One of the things we connect with at our church is the type and amount of service opportunities both in the church, or community, nation and world. It’s not that previous churches we’ve attended didn’t have this, it’s that we didn’t connect with those opportunities elsewhere for whatever reason. At WPC, we’ve simply had a feeling of being in the right place, at the right time - where everything fits. Our first service opp. that we signed up for a few weeks back was serving at a place called the Gathering Place - a non-profit that provides meals to those in need. A soup house of sorts.
For a few years I’ve been wanting to do something like this as a family, and the urge has always been strong around thanksgiving. So, we signed up. We hired a sitter for Riley and took Bre and Ash with us and arrived at the Gathering Place. As synchronicity would have it, we were greeted by Gary and Faye and later Catherine and Ken. It was WPC’s night to serve at the Gathering Place but we didn’t know they too were serving as it is a decent sized congregation. It was neat to see them and also have have our kids serve with familiar faces (and hopefully make the ‘church body’ connection). The time was wonderful, serving together, ministering to others and in turn being ministered to. I hope to continue serving at the Gathering Place.
Earlier in the week, at work, Julie had an 18month old patient who turned out to be the son of a couple who live in our neighborhood and rather close to us. We’ve never met them before. Julie didn’t piece it together until after they had left the office. She just happened to mention the event to me. There is synchronicity in this also, more later.
So this Sunday roles in. Julie and I attended the carry over class from last week, the Faith and Heritage class - today’s class being Application and how we balance faith, family, work… This class was structured to be an open discussing with a 5 person panel. Based on my rambling at the related class last week, I was asked to be on the panel! It was wonderful and while we only had an hour, we could’ve spent hours discussing the topic. We met more new faces and got to know a few others a bit more. I feel that in teaching, we are taught, and while it wasn’t a ‘teacher/student’ class, the feeling and conclusion for me was that we are all students in the journey we call life. Teaching our kids, but also taught by them. That, it is in the gaps between Church and Religiosity that we often come face to face with God, and the magical moments that ensue.
For example. This week Bre spilled a cup of root beer. Sounds simple right? Well, the beverage was a reward of sorts for eating dinner well and taking a shower without having to be told over and over again. So, unasked, I prepared a hefty cup of root beer for her, more than I normally would btw. She starts to enjoy it, but soon spills all of it in a moment of carelessness. The lesson for me was this… this type of event could easily result in me loosing my cool, lecturing, yelling, scolding, what have you… but instead, I expressed my disappointment and then relaxed. I asked her to clean it up and helped by mopping. Breanne handled it well to her credit, not loosing it herself - which may have helped me to think instead of just reacting. It was in the end only spilled soda. Without her asking, I gave her what rood beer was left in the bottle (my portion).
The magical moment for me however was this… after the situation had come and gone, and I was putting the mop away, a childhood memory flashed in my head. I recall first moving to Schuyler at age 4/5. My mom had brought us there to get away from my father. It was the beginning of a divorce, of official separation. We were at the annual labor day carnival with my Grandpa and Grandma and my Grandpa had bought me a huge blue snow cone. As soon as we left the concession stand I accidentally dropped the snow cone (I think I tripped over a cord). I was immediately in tears, wanting another one. My Grandpa had been drinking and didn’t take kindly to my mistake. I recall being scolded and faulted for dropping it and that was it. Even though it was just a snow cone - I still remember it. The significance for me was in the connection of the memory (the past and present moments), realizing that in ways it was essentially the same situation, but my role and reactions where different. I wonder, if my experience as a child could have been preparation for the event with Bre - and I happened to get it? It wasn’t as if I saw the past and made a present decision based off it as I didn’t make the connection until after the event, but the memory came into my consciousness after the decision had been made, to not make a mountain out of a mole hill.
This moment, to me, was at the heart of what we were attempting to discuss in the class at church. It was where God was standing right there, the opportunity to overlook a supposed wrong, to forgive and in turn love, unhindered by circumstance. All this over a dropped snow cone and spilled root bear 
After class and donuts, I noticed Julie talking with a couple and they’re 18month old son. It was our neighbors who just have to come for a visit today. They were telling Julie how they both had differing denominational backgrounds and were trying to find a middle ground, to just attend a church again. While I know not the place they may end up, the physical structure that they may come to call a church home, I know that there is meaning in Julie meeting the son and in turning connecting the dots to who they were, and in the end, of all the potential places she could’ve been, being right there at the top of the steps when they entered in to what we are calling our church home.
For all of this, I am grateful. Grateful to be able to connect to dots, to live, to grow. It is a wondrous thing to live this life in the moments that define it.
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