We have another guest writer for our newsletter this week! One of my colleagues in ministry, the Rev. Alina M. Kanaski, wrote this lovely article and gave me permission to share it with you all. Pastor Alina serves two churches: Chartiers Valley United Presbyterian Church and Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, both in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
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I started a new practice a few weeks ago. I started writing down every time I experienced a sacrament. I write it on a slip of paper, fold it in half, and put it in my M&M Star Wars mug.
A word of explanation: John Calvin wrote (somewhere in Institutes of Christian Religion): “the term sacrament … embraces generally all those signs which God has ever enjoined upon men to render them more certain and confident of the truth of his promises.” That is, a sacrament is any moment when we feel God’s presence, any moment when we are reminded of God’s truth and determine to keep going the way that God has set before us. A sacrament, then, is not just that moment when we come up for communion or see a baby being baptized. It is any moment that God uses something tangible to remind us of God’s grace for us. (John Calvin is by far not the only one to argue this; his writings were just the first time I encountered this idea.)
I’m not just writing down when I receive communion, then. I’m writing down any time I receive God’s grace, any time that something I can see or touch reminds me that God is with me.
Here’s some of the entries:
-watching a squirrel have what looked like the time of its life while I’m saying the communion liturgy
-a big, long hug during the passing of the peace
-unexpected texts from a friend
-Psalm 51:6 : “You desire truth in my inmost being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.”
-writing a message in a greeting card
-hearing the stories of the good, good work of midwives in Haiti, who are helping make better lives for mothers and children
-talking about good movies with the librarian
I just grabbed the mug and dumped it out to make that list, and I was surprised at how many sacramental moments I’ve recorded since I started. I feel like I keep forgetting this project for days at a time, but still the number of times that I’ve been reminded of God’s love since I started is more than I remembered. Maybe that’s the real value of a project like this: I have physical proof that God has been with me, that I have felt God around me even when I haven’t been very attentive, even when I’ve forgotten about this project for days at a time, even when I’ve been so busy. And I can begin to wonder about all the ways that God was present when I wasn’t noticing.