Connected

Yesterday, I experienced a slew of miracles. Well, not what you might consider miracles, but pure moments of blessing and connection and awareness of God’s participation in my day. And they all involved people.

I set off early for an emotionally loaded day-long task – to collect remaining items from the house my family has just left, without intention of human interaction. Instead, I had a series of beautiful encounters with people, and every single one of them strengthened me and reassured me that no matter where we go, God presents opportunities to give and receive love. Sometimes with people we’ve known for decades, and sometimes with people we’ve never met. Even though I am leaving the community in which I have lived for 16 years, I know that it continues, it comes with me, and it will meet me in my new place.

I dropped by a friend’s house unexpectedly, and she welcomed me in. Her daughter gleefully dragged me to the back yard to see her new playhouse. I felt so honored that this child invited me into her world. I kicked off my shoes, climbed the ladder, and marveled at the Christmas tree installed in the tiny little room. I’m a fifty year old woman, but felt like I’d been invited to be eight again. I gazed out over the neighborhood gardens, then climbed across the rope netting and slid down the twirly slide. Then I went inside and joined her mom for tea, heard from her brother about Christmas gifts he’d made, and met their grandparents. And I felt so blessed and welcomed and connected.

Later that afternoon I prepared for the long drive back, after finishing some very hectic and dirty work. My neighbor across the street invited me to meet her newborn son and her mother visiting from Mexico. I was embarrassed at how dirty and harried I looked, but I went over. To admire this exquisite sleeping infant, embrace his proud and excited young mother, and talk about faith and community in Spanish with her lovely mother I’d never met before, standing there in my dusty sweaty clothes... It was humbling and wonderful.

The whole day was like that. My 92 year old Buddhist neighbor who sent me off with a “Merry Christmas!”; the phone conversation as I drove home with a friend of 35 years; a rose in my car from a long-time “sister” who has been present through our decision to move and through whom we were led to the house we are settling into; the millions of people on the roads and highways all trying to get home and ready for the holidays. God filled my world with people, and if I’m paying attention, I recognize what an amazing potential gift each of them is.

In the church, we use the word “communion” in several ways, without recognizing that they are the same meaning. Some refer to the bread and wine as “communion” – if they haven’t received the elements, they “haven’t had communion”. Some refer to the mystical union between God and human as “communion” – an experience of an individual relationship with the divine. Some refer to a “communion” as a specific subset of people, which implies exclusion of someone – “the Anglican communion”, or the “communion of the baptized”. And it’s such a rarefied word, so “set apart”, so “Sunday best”. The image I have of Jesus, however, is of God connected. With everyone and everything. Jesus creates relationship like German and Mexican grandmothers bake cookies. He shows up in community, a much better meaning for “communion”. Nothing polished, no fancy clothes, no qualification of who “rates” love, no language or ethnicity or condition of life to be rejected. Each week we accept a wide open invitation to share bread and wine together because God showed up in person to see to it that we knew Him well enough to adore him, and each other. That’s a meal I will never tire of sharing -- with you.