God in a basket of muffins, hope in bottle of cream

“. . . believe the works [I perform], so that you may realize and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” John 10: 31-42

In her wonderful book Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss, Margaret Renkl recalls the morning after her mother’s sudden death — and the small miracle of resurrection she experienced in an anonymous neighbor’s kindness. “Before I was up, someone brought a basket muffins, good coffee beans, and a bottle of cream — real cream, unwhipped — left them on the back door, and tiptoed away. I couldn’t eat. The smell of coffee turned my stomach, but my head was pounding from the tears and all the what-ifs playing across my mind all night long, and I thought perhaps the cream would make a cup of coffee count as breakfast if I could keep it down.

“When I poured just a drip of cream into my cup, it erupted into volcanic bubbles in a hot spring, unspooling skeins of bridal lace, fireworks over a dark ocean, stars streaking across the night sky about a silent prairie.

“And that’s how I learned the world would go on. An irreplaceable life had winked out in an instant, but outside my window the world was flaring up in celebration. Someone was hearing, It’s benign. Someone was saying, It’s a boy. Someone was throwing out her arms and crying, Thank you! Thank you! Oh, thank you!”

To take whatever you have (no matter how little), to give whatever time you can (no matter how limited), to put aside your own needs and challenges (no matter how great) – that is to do the work of Christ. Such humble but complete giving, such simple offerings compelled by compassion, reveal the reality of the Kingdom of God in our midst — even and especially in the most difficult times. In taking on, with joy and resolve, the work of compassion and reconciliation the Risen One entrusts to us, we build God’s dwelling in our midst — one cup of coffee, one muffin, one bottle of cream at a time.

Christ Jesus, in our days, we have many opportunities to do your work of reconciliation and mercy. Give us the generosity of heart to recognize those chances to bring your love into the life of another; give us the humility of spirit to get beyond our own needs and fears to try to do for others what you would do; give us the courage of faith to remember that in our kindnesses and love we can re-make our lives and world into your Kingdom.

Fr John Frauenfelder