You might not know this but duck decoys don’t respond to ducks calls. I know this from experience because this afternoon I spent an hour and fifteen minutes calling a duck that was about two hundred yards away from me. The spot I like to hunt is close to a small dam and as you get close to the dam the current gets a little faster. Apparently the mallard liked the current because it moved around and dove in the same spot that entire time I was there. Yet no matter how much, or well, I called I couldn’t get a response from him. That’s because decoys don’t respond to duck calls. They don’t have the ability to hear the calls no matter how loud you call. I didn’t discover the mentioned duck was someone’s lost decoy until I was packing up and decide at the very least I would scare the stupid duck away from the spot it seemed to love so much. Seems decoys don’t scare either, so it didn’t move. Good news is that I know where I will be picking up a free decoy tomorrow.
31 Days/2 – Scared of Love
Before I do anything else let me say that I will never be able to adequately express how thankful I am for the family and friends who helped my family to grieve over the past two weeks. On top of all the other acts of service my family arrived home Wednesday night to discover that either a “thread” or a neighbor had graciously raked our yard (I think “thread” since Sunday during the message at Tapestry I mentioned the frustration of raking the yard one day and it being covered again the next day, but our neighbors are just as awesome so I’m not sure). You are all wonderful and I am honored to know you and be loved by you.
Now on to the post.
I adore Coffee with Jesus. I think it is one of the best things on the internet. The artist remains consistent rather than simply picking the conservative or progressive side on a subject. I believe this typically leads to Coffee with Jesus ticking off both sides. The comic strips consistently challenge me.
Anyhow this blog post isn’t about Coffee with Jesus. Instead it is concerning the word “love” and I thought the above comic strip was a good way to start the post.
A couple of weeks ago I saw the comment thread below on a friend’s Facebook page.
The second comment really gets me because … well … to be honest whenever I see a professed Christian saying that they automatically become suspicious when they see someone quoting “love your neighbor as yourself,” I … errr … well … I become suspicious of that professed Christian.
“Love your neighbor as yourself” should be the knee jerk reaction of a follower of Christ to any situation. It should be our first, second, third, and fourth reaction. It should even be behind our behavior when our response isn’t necessarily positive but instead calls for followers of Christ to fight for someone or against something. After all, God’s discipline comes out of love (Revelation 3:19).
Why should it be our knee jerk reaction? Well, because Jesus said it is that important. Remember the context of when Jesus made the statement. He was answering the question of an expert in the law concerning what was the greatest commandment (Luke 22:34-40). Jesus’s answer to what was the greatest commandment was: 1a, love God with all your heart, soul, and mind (and strength in the Gospel According to Mark), and 1b love your neighbor as you love yourself. Jesus even went so far as to say that 1b was “like” 1a. That’s a strong word. The Greek word used in the verse that we translate as “like” is ὁμοία and can also be translated as “resembles”. When we love our neighbor as ourselves it resembles loving God.
I understand the guy’s fear. I believe it to be an honest comment and I respect that, though it still makes me sad. He says “‘Love’ doesn’t seem to mean what it used to.” I understand his fear, though I also believe that some of the change to our understanding of loving your neighbor is a good thing. That’s a subject for another blog post. You see the Spirit that God fills His people with isn’t a “spirit of fear” (2 Timothy 1:7 KJV) but of power, love, and self-discipline. The Spirit pushes us to respond in love not fear. If someone starts defining the concept of “loving your neighbor as yourself” in a manner that isn’t biblical, then we have to reclaim the phrase, rather than becoming suspicious of the phrase and turning our backs on it. The bible shows the word “love” to be closely connected with the word “sacrifice” (John 15:13). Fear leads to us holing up and trying to protect ourselves. Fear leads to us turning our backs on our neighbors. Love does the opposite. Love leads to us sacrificing ourselves like Christ. After all, such behavior resembles loving God and needs to be reclaimed rather than mistrusted.
I hope those of us who claim to be followers of Christ will respond to everything around us by sacrificing as Jesus does, rather than just trying to protect ourselves. So many of you did this for me and my family this past week. You sacrificed your time, energy, and emotional strength for us and thereby loved us. Thank you.
Dad's Obituary
Since the local newspaper only keeps obituaries online for a year I thought I would post dad’s obituary here on my blog. Also for those who want to attend dad’s memorial it will be Monday, October 19th at 6 p.m. at Forest Lawn Funeral Home, 9700 Celeste Rd, Saraland, AL with visitation an hour before the memorial.
Here is the obituary that Mom, Ken, Pam, and I wrote for dad:
Jun 5, 1944 – Oct 14, 2015 Floyd (“Buddy”) Bernard Terrell, 71, died peacefully at home in Saraland, AL on October 14, 2015 surrounded by his family. Floyd was born on June 5, 1944 in Monroe, Louisiana, the second child and only son of C.F. Terrell and Ruth Windsor Terrell Ezzell. His sister, Lynn Terrell Case Longshore preceded him in death earlier this year. Floyd grew up in Montgomery, AL and was a graduate of Robert E. Lee High School. After a stint in the Navy he married the love of his life, Evelyn Sansom Terrell. He worked in sales in various fields until 20 years ago he found his professional home at Bay Paper in Mobile, AL and retired(ish) in 2006. Floyd enjoyed being an active member of the Mobile Mustang Club, fishing, and previously served on the Kushla Water Board.
Those who knew and loved Floyd, know that he had much wisdom to share including life lessons such as these: You can say you hate cats and still feed & adopt half the strays in the area. When your wife reads a lot, you get to control the TV remote. Breakfast with friends is a great way to start every day, therefore, two breakfasts with friends is even better. Helping your son put a moonroof in his Ford Pinto is a terrifying but wonderful thing. When your child is in trouble help them first, but don’t forget to chew them out later. You can solve most of the problems you face in life with a pen, band-aid, pocket knife, and a quarter. Why buy something that you can make Always ask for a better deal. Making friends of all the people around you is the right thing to do, which just so happens to lead to lots of great deals. Be more valuable to your company than your paycheck. It is better to be the person helping to get something done, than it is the person complaining about it not being done.
Floyd is survived by Evelyn, his wife of 50 years, his sons Robert Adam Terrell (Pam) of Wisconsin and Kenneth Bernard Terrell of Colorado, 7 grandchildren, and friends from all walks of life. A memorial service will take place at Forest Lawn Funeral Home (9700 Celeste Rd, Saraland) at 6 pm on Monday, October 19. The family will receive visitors before the memorial. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the American Cancer Society .
I Need a Mental Break SO Here are My Thoughts on Visiting Someone Who is Mourning
My dad died yesterday at 9:26 a.m. in his living room with my mom, my brother, and me all touching him and his cat laying under his bed.
In the past 36 hours we have interacted with a lot of different people, pretty much all of them wonderful, and I know that we will have much more interaction between now and his memorial Monday evening. Grief is draining and stressful and I need to direct my mind somewhere else for a bit as a diversion. We are all pretty much emotionally ravaged here. As a minister I am used to visiting with people at their best and their worst moments so I thought right now as a way of zoning out for a little while I thought I would post my personal recommendations concerning visiting with someone who has just lost a loved one. Realistically this is just a way of me concentrating on something else for a few minutes. I need that right now.
Before I begin let me stress that visiting someone who is mourning is a wonderful thing. It is a good and honorable thing. I think whenever someone visits someone in mourning they have typically already done something good and caring. My thoughts are just practical ways I think we can be even more caring in our visits.
So here are my thoughts on what I try to do when I visit someone who is mourning:
- Remember who the vist is for – I know that might sound odd, after all you want to visit to tell your friends/family how much you love them, hurt for them, and share in their grief, but sometimes we can get can get so concerned with showing our love that we don’t stop to consider if it is actually being perceived as love or not. I like to ask myself “Why am I doing this?” This helps me to consider if my actions are about my need to show love or about the person I am visiting with receiving love. Am I talking because it helps them to drown out the pain for a little while? Or am I talking just because there is a lot of silence and I feel uncomfortable? Visiting or making contact with someone in grief should be about them and not us. So I try to act in such a way that it is really about them.
- Call or text first – Don’t just drop by. You might think you are good enough friends to just show up. That might be true, though it also might just be simply what you think, either way it is so much more polite to call or text first. Calling or texting first gives people a chance to be ready emotional and physically for the visit. It also gives people a chance to say “No” to your visit, which might be the best thing if they have just gone through 3 straight hours of visits. Mourning is stressful. That is part of its nature. Having people around can and does help. Yet for some of us (I am talking about my somewhat introverted self here) having people around for extended periods can sap our energy. I appreciate more than I can express the people who have come around, but still I need breaks. I know other people do to. Call or text. It is the caring thing to do.
- Figure out what the appropriate length of stay is – Basically two things concerning how long to stay. First, don’t walk into the house already making excuses to leave. “I’m sorry this will have to be a quick visit. I have another commitment but I wanted to drop by first.” Thanks but that might make me feel unimportant. Sorry to have been a burden on you. Second, don’t stay too long. The days following a loved one’s death are usually utter chaos. There is a lot to do when someone dies and all that activity falls on the very ones who are mourning. Don’t make it more difficult on the family by visiting forever, no matter how caring you think it is. Instead, actually make sure the length of your visit is caring. Sometimes the most caring thing is to say is “I know you have to be worn out, can I bring by (whatever) for supper, and then really visit with you tomorrow, or next week, at such and such time?” If I visit someone as a minister I like to have set times in my mind of how long to visit. If I suspect that there will be lots of visits I stay 10-15 minutes. If I suspect there won’t be as many visits I stay for 20-30 minutes. I then start to dismiss myself and only stay longer if it becomes obvious that they really want me to and need me to stay longer. The length of my stay has to be about their needs, not mine.
- Bring food but consider the portions and variety – Food is wonderful. It is awesome. It is a true help not to have to think about getting something to eat. It is even better when there are small portions of different varieties of food in containers that you have no interested in ever getting back. People bring big things because they want to make sure there is enough food for all the family that is at the house. It is easier to develop one large dish for everyone than it is to develop lots of small containers of food. The problem is that often grief reduces the appetite and suddenly the mourner is stuck with WAY too much food in really big containers. You don’t want to offend your friend by not eating completely, because after all you are truly thankful for what they brought. Yet, it can be a burden. Why not consider making lots of really small portions of a variety of different foods. Small portions can always be doubled up if someone is really hungry. Small portions can be frozen and eaten a week later when everyone has disappeared and the grieving really begins. Also, I know ham is the national grieving dish but really turkey is also good or maybe cold cuts. I promise these are just as good for grief as ham. Possibly consider bringing something specific that you know the mourner really likes, and probably won’t get because everyone knows you are supposed to bring ham. If someone brought a case of Diet Cokes to my mom’s house during their visit that would say a ton about them knowing us. Nobody ever thinks “Wow they have to be hurting, I am going to bring them some Diet Cokes”, but I promise for the Terrell house that would be the food item that was remember two months into our grieving. Or pulled pork BBQ sandwiches. That would be awesome food for grieving. Why are you bringing food? If it is really about the person grieving then make sure you bring food in the manner that is most helpful to them.
- Be okay with silence – I know silence can be uncomfortable, but when you visit someone that is grieving that is your problem not theirs. The visitor has to be the one who gets used to the silence, the mourner shouldn’t be responsible for putting up with random chatter just so a visitor feels more comfortable. In visiting a mourner hospitality reverses itself. We go to a mourner’s house to help make them comfortable, rather than them making us feel at home (something else on this later). You might need to talk to cover up the silence, but the family might just need someone to sit with them in the midst of their pain, rather than interrupting their pain by just making noise. I really like the concept of sitting shiva from Judaism and try to use much of it it in my visits. One of the customs of shitting shiva is that when someone enter’s the house of a mourner you enter with the mindset of remaining silent until the mourner initiates conversation. If the mourner wants to talk then you talk with them, if they don’t start talking then you sit in silence and are just present. If I begin to feel uncomfortable with the silence for some reason and I realize I am talking too much in response, I will often start forcing myself to slowly, silently count to a specified number before I say anything else. It slows down the conversation and leaves room for the mourner to say whatever he/she wants, or to say nothing at all. If I noticed they aren’t saying anything I go back to silence myself and just sit there with them. I always try to determine whether I talk or I remain silent based on what I perceive the needs of the mourner to be rather than my own needs. After all, the visit is about them, not me.
- Come with a story – The next two things are going to sound like I am saying the exact opposite of being silent. I mean both of these next two points to happen if a mourner initiates conversation. If you can, come with a story about the person who is being mourned. One of the things I love hearing right now is what my dad meant to other people and stories of things that happen when they were with him that I might not know about. Several people have come with stories of dad and I have loved and appreciated each one. Fun, sad, meaningful. I don’t care which. Just talk about my dad instead of some story you heard on the news. Usually I would love to hear about the bad service you had at the electronics store, but not when I am in mourning. Telling stories about the one they love is a wonderful way of helping the mourners, or in this case my mom, brother, and me, in their grief.
- Come with a question – Give the mourner a chance to tell their own stories about the one they lost. When I visit I like to come with a question in mind about the one they lost. I don’t mean by this a broad range question like “What did you like the most about your dad?” That is too much pressure and requires to much effort. Instead I usually try to come with a question about a story that I know a little bit about already. “Hey, I remember how cheap Floyd was, wasn’t there some story about the length he went to for a ‘watering can.'” In this case, this is a quick story of my dad going shopping with Pam and me. I love telling it because it reminds me of who my dad was. In this case he was the guy that drug Pam and me to three different stores to find a “water can” for his plants that was cheaper than $3. We spent $5 in gas before he decided to stick with the milk jug he had been using. This story gives me a chance to talk about my dad. Actually it does more than just giving me a chance to talk about him, it encourages me to talk about my dad. That’s good. I like to come to a house with a question that will enable to the mourners to talk as much or as little as they want about the one they love.
- It is okay to be served – I know this might sound odd but sometimes the best, most caring thing you can do is to let someone else serve you. I know I earlier said mourning reverses hospitality, but sometimes the most hospitable thing you can do for someone is to allow them to serve you in the midst of their own time of need. When I go into someone’s house who is mourning I will sometimes let them fix me something to eat if I perceive that that is what they actually need most right then. Why, well because it can be overwhelming to have everyone else doing something for you and you not be allowed to do anything for anyone else because they are trying to protect you. I know it feels nice and serving to tell someone who is grieving “No you just sit down and I will take care of everything, what can I bring you,” but sometimes the greatest act of service is to say “Why yes a scrambled egg sounds wonderful right now,” and then eat that scrambled egg with great enjoyment and gratitude for the mourner who just served you. Every now and then the act of service is to be served.
I am sure there are other things I could post about this but these thoughts have been enough of a distraction for the moment and I need to get back to working on a video of my dad for Monday. Thank you to all of my dad’s, mom’s, brother’s, wife’s, kids’, and my own family and friends who are helping us grieve. Y’all mean the world to us and have been more help than I can express to you. Your notes, messages, texts, calls, and other things have been wonderful and needed. What you have done by helping us mourn is a good thing in and of itself. Thank you.
31 Days/2 – Follow Up On Why
Today at Tapestry I encouraged everyone to ask “why do we do what we do”. While doing so I showed part of a video and briefly told the story of Robert Raikes and the founding of Sunday School as an act of social justice. Since I only briefly mentioned these two things I thought I would include two links.
First, here’s a link for a fuller story on the development of Sunday School by Robert Raikes. The effectiveness of Sunday School can easily be debated now but their development was an amazing act of faith in taking care of “the least of these.” So many of the actions and programs in our churches that we no longer ask “why” concerning, started out as acts of justice. We need to start more actions and programs that will so influence our culture that in the future we will no longer see the need for them.
The second link is to the full video from Simon Sinek. I only referenced a small part of this video but the who thing is worth watch.
31 Days/2 – Friend of Sinners
“Friend” is not an official title, or a role we have to play, or a function in society. We have our brothers and sisters in the nature of things, and have to live with them. But friendships grow up out of free encounter. Friendship is a personal relationship between people who like one another. Friendship combines affection with respect.
Combining affection with respect does not mean wanting to serve the other person, or having to help him, or making use of him. It means simply liking someone for themselves, just as they are. The affection has to do with the being of other people, the respect has to do with their freedom. Friendship is the opposite of appropriation or the desire to possess. If we become aware of any such intention, we are put off, and the friendship withers. In friendship we sense that there is a wide space of freedom in which we can expand, because we are trusted and can lay aside the protective mechanism of mistrust.
Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life, p. 255.
I am finishing reading “The Spirit of Life” and loved this quote. I love his description of friendship. All the more interesting when you consider that apparently Jesus’s enemies said the following concerning Him.
The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds. (Matthew 11:19)
I think that is consistent with the picture of Jesus presented in the New Testament. He loved people. He loved being around people, no matter their state of being. This doesn’t mean that He didn’t call everyone to repentance, He just also respected people’s freedom of will (sorry my Calvinist friends).
31 Days/2 – The Santa Claus God Quote
A while back I read “Free of Charge” by Miroslav Volf. I believe I have mentioned in the past that I love Volf’s writing and speaking. He is wonderful. Here’s a quote from “Free of Charge” that I really enjoy.
God is an inexhaustibly fertile source of everything. But is it true that God demands nothing? If it were true, how could Jesus urge us, as he does in the Sermon on the Mount, to be perfect as God is? Here is what we do as worshipers of a Santa Claus God: We embrace the conviction that God is an infinitely generous source of all good, but conveniently forget that we were created in God’s image to be in some significant sense like God – not like God in God’s divinity, for we are human and not divine, but like God “in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24), like God in loving enemies (Matthew 5:44). To live well as a human being is to live in sync with who God is and how God acts.
“Free of Charge”, p. 26.
I bear the image of God. Therefore, I need to be like Him in His holiness yes, but also in His justice, His mercy, His grace, His generosity, His sacrifice, His suffering, His love. To bear the Imago Dei is a powerful demand and a powerful thing. To believe in a generous God should lead to us understanding and acting on the truth that we were created in the image of that generous God. The image we are created bearing is supposed to shape who we are and how we act.
That’s the problem with a Santa Claus god. Santa Claus doesn’t serve as a challenge to us to live in generosity and sacrifice (though the story of the real St. Nick should do just that). Nope Santa is culturally someone who just gives to us, supposedly when we are nice and not naughty, but usually no matter what. But a truly generous God Whose image we are created bearing, well that’s another thing all together. Being created in the image of that generous God calls us to live that image out. It calls us to give as God gives, to all who were created in His image.
In addition since there are traces of the Imago Dei (these traces are known as the vestigia Dei) all around us, we, as image bearers, should be drawn to and respond to those traces. While the saying may be that “Opposites attract” the reality is that we are drawn to things and people with which we have similarities. For an odd example consider the report that has been recently released by the Federal Reserve Board suggesting that people with similar credit scores tend to have more successful committed relationships. We connect more strongly with people and things with which we have a common resonance. Like attracts like.
Jürgen Moltmann writes that early Christians often preferred eros to the word agape when referring to our response to God’s love, because eros is a surrendering to attraction and desire, while agape reflects a self’s decision. Eros has God as the initiator and us as those who respond out of desire. If (and when I say “if” I mean “since”) there are traces of God’s image in the people (and creation) all around us, no matter how distorted those traces are, we should still be driven to love them because of the attraction we have to the traces of God’s image in them. The Imago Dei in us can’t help but be attracted to the Imago Dei we see in others. We are driven by the desire of “like attracting like” to love our neighbor because of the desire we have been created with to love God. Like a teenager who can’t stand to be away from her first crush, our desire for God should pull us.
31 Days/2 – Mystery Gifter
Not to beat a dead horse but I am only going to mention gifts this time because it happened again today. For sometime now Pam and I have had a mystery gifter at church. I know that mystery gifter isn’t really a title but I don’t know what else to call this person. Tapestry doesn’t “pass the plate” for offerings. We really don’t make a big deal about money because we don’t really need a lot of money to do what we believe God has called us to do. So contributing to the church via our online mechanism is mentioned in our church bulletin and we have a small offering box on the back table just in case someone prefers to give cash or a check.
For a while now someone, or several someones, have been putting random gifts in the offering box for Pam and me. They have generally been small but very meaingful gifts. Little things that say that this person or persons knows us. Pam has received a “Mr. Darcy” keychain & library socks and I have received a two “widow’s mite” coins and a bumper sticker that I had mentioned to some people that I thought was fun. I will admit that I have felt a little weird about these being put in the offering box but that’s just really me being stupid (you see I have some hangups about a few “pastoral” things). Still I have very much appreciated each of the gifts, and I know Pam has as well.
That person, or persons, has struck again. Today I was surprised with an audiobook. C.S. Lewis at War, which is a dramatic audio concerning Lewis’s wartime BBC readings that eventually became Mere Christianity. I don’t know who to thank but I sure do hope that whoever gave me this knows that I appreciate it greatly. Whoever you are thank you. Your gift was well time today and I am thankful for you.
I promise I don’t plan on mentioning any further gifts for the rest of the month.
31 Days/2 – Gift Payments
I think better when I am doing two things. The first is that think better when I am regularly involved in challenging conversations with those I love and respect. Pam and I have the best, challenging, conversations. Really you should hear our bedtime conversations. They usually involve us sharing a quote with each other from whatever we are presently reading and then discussing that subject with each other. It is wonderful “pillow talk.” I do the same with friends around coffee or lunch (except that isn’t “pillow talk”, because that would just be plain weird. This is one of the things I loved about working at Parkview Baptist Church in Baton Rouge. I was in an office suite with people who held the best conversations. Over the past seven months I haven’t had as many such conversations with friends. Life was hectic and I was doing my best to just to stay a float. Thankfully one of the reasons for the busyness has ceased and life is back to at least a sense of normality.
The second thing that helps me to think better is writing on my blog. I’m not a great writer (just ask Pam who generously read all my M.Div & D.min papers and corrected them), but I do believe that regularly writing something on the blog helps me to think deeper about the things going on around me. It helps me to observe the world, rather than just walking through it. I write about the things that I have spoken with Pam and others about and things that I’ve seen or heard about that make me wonder. That’s where I believe my problem has been lately. The thing that I have been thinking about and talking with Pam the most about over the past six months is something that I don’t believe I can write about at this moment. I’m not “vague booking” here. I’m talking about my dad’s cancer. It just isn’t my place, at the moment, to write down any of my thoughts concerning his illness.
What has happened instead of writing about this is that I have basically stopped posting anything on my blog. I’ve maintained this blog for 10 years and I don’t want to stop writing on it. I enjoy posting things, from the meaningless to the at least meaningful to me. So I have decided to steal form my genius wife and do one of the 31 days things that she does with many others each year. The goal is to get me back to writing about something. I believe it would be stupid of me to try posting 31 days in a row after basically not writing anything for months. Therefore, I am going to try something every other day. We’ll see how that works. This will still probably be too much after this break. Succeed or fail, hopefully the attempt will help me to get back into the groove of writing something regularly.
Today’s post has to do with this photo of Thule Commuter Bicycle Panniers.
This is what I received as payment for the wedding I officiated last Saturday. I use italics on the word “payment” because I tell members of Tapestry that they don’t need to pay me anything for doing their wedding. I ask that they cover my expenses if the wedding is somewhere other than the Point region, but other than those expenses there is no need for them to pay anything. You see, I LOVE doing premarital counseling. I really enjoy helping couples think through what a good marriage looks like. I regularly tell young couples that I don’t care that much about the ceremony (really I’ll do anything they want as long as it is moral and ethical) but I care a great deal about their marriage. So I focus on the marriage instead of the wedding. I usually do around five 1 1/2 hour sessions of premarital counseling (if you want to see what we normally talk about you can view them in reverse order here). I don’t want to ask young couples who are a part of Tapestry to pay for that, nor do I want to ask them to pay for the time writing the ceremony or doing the ceremony. So I do the opposite. I ask them not to pay me anything and tell them that I am doing their wedding as a friend.
But most people still want to give me something to say thanks. I’m okay with that. Saying “thanks” is a great thing. So what has often happened are gift payments for me officiating the weddings of people connected to Tapestry. I LOVE this.
First, I love it because it is so much more relational than a check. The gifts usually reflect who the couple is and also my relationship with them. Take the above photo above as an example. This is a couple who loves to bike and with whom I have had a lot of conversations concerning good quality bicycle panniers. They have loaned me various panniers for me to try out, in hopes of me determining the next set of bicycle panniers I should purchase (when you have two kids who like to bike you tend to “lose” any nice bicycling equipment you might own). When they gave these panniers to me I smiled so much that my face hurt. I have received many such gifts. From journals, to Chuck Taylor All-Stars, to a single fishing lure that had a World Vision fishing kit sponsorship attached to one of the hooks. These gift payments are some of best pay I have ever received, because they reflect a knowledge of who the couple is and who I am. They are so much better than a check.
The second reason I love these gift payments is because they make me feel like an old time, small town pastor. Seriously, it is like someone stopping by the house and saying “Pastor, I want to thank you for that ceremony and thought you could possibly use some eggs or a slab of beef.” It really floats my boat because I think gift economies are pretty cool and very inline with the kingdom of God. One day I hope someone gives me a chicken or a goat … though I have no idea where I would keep such a payment.
Anyhow the above bicycle panniers have been used multiple times since the wedding last Saturday and I am very thankful for them.