Picture This… a spiritual reflection by Shelly Cichowlas
It was the perfect evening for a concert. Just enough breeze to shoo away the bugs and warm enough to make a light jacket feel really comfy. We set up our table at the end of the line of other tables and just like the movie foretells, “If you build it they will come” so did the other Edwards folks. We bunched together, around the table where passerby-ers were offered a seed paper decoration with a kitschy phrase (I tied the extra papers on but for the life of me cannot remember it exactly enough to retype it here). If they were interested, we shared the story of how the kids made the paper during Sunday school with recycled paper and flower seeds sprinkled in.
They wanted to know what kinds of flowers would grow, how they were made, and even though they weren’t green thumbs themselves, some would take the paper to give to another person who could possibly make them grow. I get that, really I do. Some looked at the Open Spirit brochures/events, others had heard about us and wondered where we were located.
Seeing the other people from church sitting in their everyday clothing, sharing environmentally friendly bug spray and stories about their gardens or pets or Facebook photos of new babies in the congregation just felt good- like being with old friends even though they had to think a minute to remember my name.
The table was set next to a large poster of our church activities. Actually, I helped my son to adjust the easel it sat upon and maybe didn’t look at it very closely. But that’s okay. I think that the picture of us sitting next to the table, comfortable, conversing, listening, and eating cannoli’s from a neighboring table is who we really are and what we are about; bringing it outside of our four walls to the world.
And it’s all good.