Mug of Grace
Most summers after I turned 9, I flew with the unaccompanied minor program to Bradenton, FL where my grandparents lived in a townhouse with a pool. I spent the days helping with things around the house, putting together desserts for my grandma’s tea parties, and spending endless hours in the pool. I woke up early most mornings, spending time with my grandpa who liked the early morning hours and sat in the darkness for an hour or so before the sun rose. Together, we would “read” the paper - I would look at the comics while he read more serious things.
A black coffee drinker, he would make me a hot chocolate — the day’s first practice of grace and generosity with tablespoon after tablespoon of chocolate heaped into the already chocolate Nesquik mixture.
This week, we celebrated my grandpa’s 98 years of life by touring around the places he and my grandmother raised their 3 children and holding a small service outside of the former Naval base near Detroit that included military honors. It was amazing to drive past the places he and my grandma made a mark on: the park they helped build with all recycled materials, the hospital they volunteered at, the many stories of things gone wrong, and grandpa sitting down with the kids to attend to them with grace, even when big things happened like car accidents.
To live a life that is centered in grace and generosity is the life modeled to us by God’s economy: one where scarcity is met with abundance; fear met with assurance; early mornings met with hot chocolate so thick the spoon could stand up in it. This week, as we prepare for our congregational meeting and as we enter into the last of this series on abundance, let us open our senses to the overflow all around us.
With Love,
Pastor Lauren
Photo: My grandfather, David A. Bennett and grandmother, Beverly Bennett just before grandpa left to work as a morsecode operator during WWII.