An empty nest communion table

I had another small taste of what empty nest syndrome must be like.

We took my daughter back to college on Monday and my son was in Wildwood with the St. Andrew Youth Group for a few days.  For a span of about 18 hours I was child-less.  It's not the first time.  I've certainly been without them around for longer periods of time.  It just is always a surprise, at first.

On the one hand I felt as if I should be dancing around singing “hallelujah” and on the other it was rather lonely…just me and the dog and the hubby.  Until the hubby went to work.  Then it was just me and the dog.

An amazing amount of picking up can be done, with no one to disturb the progress and mess it back up.  Piles of back to school “stuff” vacated my dining room table.  Hooray!   There also will be less laundry.  Hooray! However, even though she wasn’t home for dinner all that often this summer, my daughter’s presence at the dinner table always made me feel as if our family was finally whole.

There’s something about being together around a meal that makes life seem complete and all is right with the world, even when the world outside is going crazy.  The mother hen has all her chicks in sight and knows everyone is safe.

For our family, we have always made it a priority to have dinner together as often as possible, so the presence of the entire family for dinner just feels right.  The silly jokes.  The sharing of stories.  The gentle corrections and guidance of wisdom dispersed.  The love shared.  The hopes shared.  The hurts shared. The dreams shared.  The forgiveness granted.  When someone is missing, something is lacking.  When two kids are missing, well… hello empty nest.

When I think about our family dinner table, it leads me also to thinking about the family of God and our table of Holy Communion.  How God must pine for his children when they skip a Sunday meal, or two, or a month’s worth, or a year’s worth, or many years’ worth! 

With each meal of Holy Communion our hearts are opened to that two-way conversation with God that grants forgiveness, knows all our fears and hurts, joys and silliness, sins and anger.  In that Holy Communion meal that we share, we are loved, forgiven and welcomed into a whole continuum of believers that make up the eternal family of God, of which we are made a member in our Baptism.

The communion table brings us together as a family in Christ, a congregation family to love and support each other.  I think when we stray away from the table, God must suffer some of that empty nest syndrome too.  For if He knows the number of hairs on our heads and the days of our lives, how can He not feel the loss of our presence as we wander the world in search of the things we think we need when He can, and will, provide for our every need?

God forgives the piles of “crap” in our lives.

He doesn’t mind the dirty laundry.

He just wants us to share in His Holy Communion meal and join the family at the table.

Like every other parent. 

God IS love.  Love is at the table.  Come and taste.

Join us for worship through Labor Day, one service at 9:30 am

Beginning Sept. 11, we offer two worship services at 8:30 & 10:45 am.

www.elcaAndy.org

Friendships Left Behind and Forgiveness

My hubby with Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty in the background
Could I leave him behind?  Or let him go on ahead without me?

As you may have guessed by now, I was quite impressed with our visit to Ellis Island.  (Read previous posts here and here.)  I’ve been thinking a lot about what it would have been like to go through that experience and wondering if I would have had the faith to trust God to provide the better future these immigrants sought, and if I would have been able to leave everyone I loved behind.

The primary feeling that I think I would have been going through would have been loss…loss of home and homeland, loss of friends, loss of family.  I think that maybe that’s because I’m blessed to have a beautiful home, a wonderful country (even considering the flaws), dear friends, and a devoted family.  For me to leave all this behind would be devastating to me. 

Yet millions of people did just this. 

Their lives must have been so challenging and lacking hope to embark upon a journey to America, leaving everything behind, in search of a brighter future, hoping and trusting in God to find something better.  How lucky we are/I am.  Their primary feelings had to have been one of hope in order to get through this challenging experience.

Yet, no matter how much hope for the future they might have had, parting from family and friends could not have been easy.  The chance of ever again seeing the people left behind was very small.

This thought makes me wonder how easily we sometimes dismiss a friendship because of some temporarily hurtful slight; or how often we distance ourselves from a family member because he/she hurt our feelings.  If we were faced with the prospect of never seeing that person again, would those hurts matter so much?

Sometimes we find ourselves in exactly this situation, when we lose someone we love unexpectedly in their death.  How often have we heard people say, “I never got to say I was sorry” or “I never told him I forgive him” or “I didn’t get to say goodbye” or “I should have told her I loved her.”

I wonder if this doesn’t happen sometimes as a way of reminding us to mend our hearts and watch our words, to heal old wounds and let go of old hurts.   I imagine that faced with the prospect of parting company forever, there were many friendship healed of brokenness and many family fractures mended.

However, I am also fairly certain there were those who would not forgive and left for America carrying that hurt with them.  I imagine that carrying those unforgiven hurts around their whole life may have caused much bitterness, heartache and soul-searching.  I am certain there were more than a few people who wished, at some point during their lives, that they had made amends or offered forgiveness before leaving for America.

We know that anger, resentment, and holding on to old hurts can eat away at our souls, our health and our mental well-being. 

It is forgiveness which offers freedom, wellness and wholeness.   Jesus taught us this as He called out to His Father on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”   Luke 23:34

In the ultimate act of love, Jesus forgave us ALL our sins… all the hurtful ways we push God away… and died to set us free from the bondage that sin causes.  We are given that reminder every Sunday in worship. 

Let us not forget to forgive others, as we have been forgiven.  Amen.

Come worship with us this Summer @ 9:30 am on Sundays (through Labor Day).

www.elcaAndy.org

Ellis Island - Immigrant vs. Refugee

To find a better place.  Both the immigrant and the refugee put their faith in God toward this goal. 

This past Saturday I visited with friends at their home on Fire Island off Long Island (NY).  It was a great day and when we were in line waiting for the ferry to take us back to our cars, one of our group commented that we “looked like a bunch of refugees.”  There we were, sunburned, flip-flopped, carrying our minimum amount of “bare necessities” for a day at the beach and a day of visiting… chairs, coolers, umbrellas, beach bags, back packs, a cake carrier, etc.   I guess we might have looked a little tired, windblown or partied-out.  Certainly a far cry from looking like a refugee, we did look somewhat less put-together than our Sunday best.  (But at St. Andrew we’re not necessarily known for wearing our “Sunday best” anyway, so that’s par for the course I guess.)

We laughed at the analogy, but considering my recent visit to Ellis Island, it got me to thinking.

How many people who traveled through Ellis Island were not just immigrants but akin to refugees? Maybe they didn’t fit the strict definition of refugee, but many were fleeing the poverty, limited chance to prosper, or political hostilities of their home countries.

They came with just the bare necessities.  And $25 (if they had that at all.)

Yet, for all the hardships these immigrants faced in their journey to come to America, they had the hope of the promise of America.   They had faith in God to lead them to a better place. The Statue of Liberty bears a plaque with the sonnet “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus which reads, in part,

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

In America there was hope for the future.

The choice was America.

Refugees don’t often have choices.  They are running for their lives.  They also place their hope and faith in God to lead them to a better place.

The United States has an “Asylum and Refugee Policy” that, as of 1999 allowed up to 78,000 refugees to obtain asylum here annually.  Today’s global conflicts and political uprisings are numerous.  People cry out for freedom all around the globe.  According to The Voice of America , there are currently about 15 million refugees worldwide.  The U.S. State Department identifies six “protracted refugee situations.” 

1.       Liberians in West Africa
2.       Somalis in Kenya
3.       Croatians and Bosnians in Serbia
4.       Afghans in Pakistan
5.       Bhutanese in Nepal
6.       Burmese in Thailand

Since 1939, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service has helped migrants and refugees to find hope and a future in American communities.  By 2008, LIRS had helped to resettle over 315,000 refugees. 

Next time we think we look like refugees as we trudge our few “necessities” back from a day at the beach, I bet we’ll all think twice about what that really means.

Thank you God for all the blessings we have in the freedom and prosperity that comes with the birthright of being an American.  Thank you, even more, for the people who fight the legal, economic and political battles on behalf of those who flee oppression and for those who help to make refugees feel welcome once they are granted the asylum they so desperately seek.  Amen.

Join us for worship this Summer at 9:30 am on Sundays.
www.elcaAndy.org