Lenten Writing Prompt #10
Is there a religious object (cross, note, 3rd grade Bible, special tree, picture, etc.) that is meaningful to you and/or symbolic to you and your faith? Perhaps it is something that is an heirloom or perhaps it is something new - what is its history with you and why is it special to you?
I have several silver Christmas ornaments that are copies of ancient crosses. We used to put them on the Christmas tree and I would wear one of them with my clergy vestments in church on Sundays. They formed a bridge between the past and the present. They still do. Now I have given most of them to my daughters to add another layer in our Christmases. It forms a chain of great continuity. How far will that chain go in the future? It is nice to think about and brings me closer to who I am.
ReplyDeleteDoug
Thank you Doug!
DeleteDad,
DeleteI use your crosses on the Christmas tree (along with your Good Friday cross - 'to keep it real' & peace sign crosses) and saved them out this year when I was packing away the Christmas ornaments. This Lent, I put some twigs in a vase and hung the crosses from the twigs as a 'lenten tree'. Your crosses will live on - and so will the stories of the man who wore them.
Thank you. (Wiping a tear from his eye....really)
DeleteSuch power, joy, meaning.
Deleteronaldo
...We have a table cloth.
ReplyDelete...It was meant to hold memories but has taken on much more.
...In 1981 my younger sister and her husband were leaving for the first time to Peru, to be missionaries. Before they left our extended family gathered with some friends, probably about 60 of us all together. We gathered on the farm where my parents were living, That farm was originally purchased by my great grandfather.
...I brought a plain white table cloth and asked people who came to sign it. Later we would embroider over those names. Each year once or twice at holidays, where ever we lived, we have pulled out the table cloth and had the people who joined us sign it.
...We have the names of long ago friends on that table cloth. We have the names of children 3, 4 or 5 years old who are now college graduates. We have the names of my grandmother, father and some uncles who have all died. When we eat with it, I read their names and see their faces, I remember their great gifts.
...Since my faith is so deeply rooted in the generations who came before me, there is an experience of the communion of saints when we pull it out to eat. They touch me still.
Such a loving tradition. Making holy the gathering of God's people. Might just be adopted by others.
Deleteronaldo
I was raised in St. Paul's Lutheran Church in downtown Kirkland. The building is still there but of course it is no longer a church, Lutheran or otherwise. Our grandparents were some of the earliest members and raised their family there. We shared countless church services, Christmas programs, Sunday School classes, weddings, baptisms, confirmations and eventually funerals with our cousins, aunts, uncles and parents and friends in that steeply-pitched building or at the stately Greens Funeral Home building right next door.
ReplyDeleteIn those days, the early '70's for me, when we were confirmed our parents gave us a small cross on a thin gold chain. It seemed a very important moment for me when finally it was my turn to receive this gift. It not only represented the culmination of what seemed like endless afternoon Confirmation classes with the pastor, but it also was one of my first pieces of 'real' jewelry.
Through the years I have added other pieces to my jewelry box but I whenever I see that little gold cross I think of all the old memories of our little church in Kirkland and am glad I have this little momento to help remind me of the faith that has been passed down to us through our grandparents and their parents before them.
Pat Mason
Your well put words bring to mind our ways of touching each others' lives. Mementoes carry real power. Bring us together over time.
Deleteronaldo
My Horseshoe Nail Cross
ReplyDeletePectoral cross signs my profession at work.
Dangling mid-chest myself centers.
Parson, pastor, therapist, prophet not clerk,
God’s hands, voice, presence to faithful and dissenters.
Behind this symbol walks a man of many flaws.
Another once said “Chief of sinners” his title, mine.
Yet claimed by grace, empowered by Spirit, draws
Ministry made public by Almighty God’s design.
Rough cut, soldered sure, these nails bound
To a man holding cross-bar outside Jerusalem long ago.
Not the execution spikes archaeologists found,
Still reminders of ingenuity used to kill God’s imago.
Graphic, visceral, meant to evoke drama real,
This accouterment brings alive worship’s drama.
Gathered folk come to witness, to praise, to feel
Spirit’s response to each of life’s dilemma.
Vestments cover the wearer to make real the role.
Ancient rites presided over by holy ones set aside.
Christian gatherings call out one from the fold.
Ordained, God’s person in whose presence to abide.
‘Tween stole arms this symbol sits.
Seasonal colors shift liturgical focus.
Ever true the paradox, God-Man, fits.
Our witness, our service, our lives the locus.
At baptism, cross given, reminds the cost.
Creator settled ever the rift of sin.
Word Made Flesh displayed humanity’s not lost.
Spirit maintains history’s story midst chaos’ din.
Have you a cross? Does it sit on your breast?
Could it be that such a mark needs find its’ way
To remind of your ministry, your life’s quest,
Be assured our mighty God has the last say.
The Rev. Ronald Allen Melver
25.2.13
My IAH Ring
ReplyDeleteI still have my I.A.H. ring, which I wore for a number of years beginning in 1950. Each Sunday while attending Nazareth Lutheran Church Sunday School, I received a colorful booklet published by David C. Cook in Elgin, Illinois. This paper mentioned a special group called “The Charmed Life Circle” to which one could belong if one invited Jesus into their heart.
Well, I had invited Jesus into my heart when I was seven years old, and many times after that! So I sent away my request to join this club, and soon received a packet of papers to read. The pale green papers included many Bible verses explaining how to live faithfully for Jesus. After reading through this material, I signed my promise to live always for Jesus first, and sent the papers back.
Soon I received a little package in the mail with my precious silver IAH ring enclosed. Words and prayers for a little ceremony were included, which I read and prayed as I put the ring on my finger, repeating the deeply felt words, “I Am His”. I knew that Jesus was with me always, as I was reminded every morning when I felt the ring on my finger.