Stumbling upon God's Grace ...

In the quiet moments ...

What a week it has been ... Monday we got a dump of snow that was cumulatively as much as we got almost ALL winter ... Tuesday was a snow day here, but for the rest of the province a grey and rainy day, leaving us feeling like some geographic oddity ... Then Wednesday broke clear and sunny but cold while I dashed here and there for coffee with the Mens' Group in Eugenia then Communion with the folks at Grey Gables ... and the last two days have been days of planning, preparation, administration, catching up and looking forward ...

All in all, it has been a busy week but a good week ... and it has been a week of firsts as well as I've stumbled into revelations of God's Grace in quiet unexpected and quiet moments: 

This Sunday for the first time in almost 20 years of ministry I will be presiding at a Baptism Service for a Child of the Congregation who has been part of the Congregation and who was born while I was here. In some respects it is simultaneously sad and exciting.

Exciting because the young child being Baptised is such an important and cherished part of our faith community, but sad because something that once was so common has become a special event because of shifting and changing demographics. 

And on Wednesday as we celebrated Communion I helped some of the residents at Grey Gables with getting the bread and the juice to their lips ... it was a quiet very intimate spiritual moment as I held the elements to their lips and spoke the words "The Body and Blood of Christ" as they partook of this holiest of gestures. It was a humbling and powerful moment ... one I had never encountered so directly before in my journey through ministry ...

There is something profound holding the juice to the lips of an elder and waiting as they sipped ...
eyes meeting eyes ...
their shaking hands holding yours ...
the spoken promises that this moment is the very Gift of God, for a Child of God ...

... the quiet of that moment reminds us that we are ALL children of God and that we are ALL recipients of this gift of Grace that transforms us and sends us into the world to proclaim the power and majesty of God's Love for All.

In the quiet moments we find glimmers of Grace and are blessed ...