FROM THE PASTOR

I Love You Soooo Much

I am remembering a note I received from one of my children many years ago.  It was boisterously colorful, scribbled with a rainbow of many crayons in a random way.  In the middle of a page full of wiggly color. Written in big red thick crayon was this:  Dear Daddy, I love you soooooooo much!!!!!” 

It was a masterpiece, a stunning work of art because it reflected true thanksgiving.  There was no particular occasion.  I hadn’t done anything recently that I could think of think of to earn such a lavish offering from one of my children.  It was simply an act of love for me, a human being who shared a life and a home with another human being and remembered him.  How often children do that, put squiggles on a paper and give it to a parent, teacher, pastor, uncle, grandmother, friend.  How often they offer something of themselves for us to keep and cherish (at least until we run out of space on the refrigerator or bulletin board and need to make room for more offerings of thanksgiving.)  It is a holy thing to be remembered, to be thanked, just for being who we are to the one offering the gift. 

That is, I suggest, how we thank God.  For many specific things to be sure.  But also, and more deeply, just for being there with us, in our hearts, in our homes, in our lives, for sharing these things with us, for being Immanuel, God with us.  Think about some of the hard places and experiences you have endured this past year.  Who was there for you as you look back in gratitude, for surely that person was the presence of God for you.  More important than any particular action or word of advice or material blessing is the simple presence of someone who cares.  When someone may not know what to do to help us in the midst of a crisis, or what to say, but still is with you and you know they will not leave you, there is something for which to give heartfelt thanks. 

So in this time of thanksgiving we don’t only count our blessings.  We join together as God’s own dear children to say, “Creator God we love you soooooooo much!!!!!!!!!” 

Eucharist is the Thanksgiving of the people of God at its most sublime.  We receive with grateful hearts, not only the many blessings we count, but Christ himself, who gave himself on the cross, and still gives himself in compassion for the world he loves, for you and me. 

It is a holy thing to remember and to be remembered. 

“Do this in remembrance of me.” 

Pastor Stephen Paul Bouman
Thanksgiving, 2023