"The next time you find yourself overwhelmingly grateful for a friendship you are in, for the love of someone who is there for you, who has cared for you and comforted you and made you laugh and made you think...the next time that happens, why not improvise some completely unnecessary and unexpected way to say thank you to her and to God? Or the next time a new idea strikes you with the force of new freedom, or you realize how important your work is to you and how much joy it gives you, why not improvise some completely unnecessary and unexpected way to say thank you to God for ideas that liberate and work that is important?"
-Barbara Shires Blaisdell from her sermon Mother to Mother: Centered in a Circle of Need published in the book Birthing the Sermon: Women Preachers on the Creative Process, edited by Jana Childers
I am terrified of preaching. I have so much fear and anxiety surrounding my upcoming Preaching and Public Discourse class (starting tomorrow!) that sometimes I feel sick to my stomach. This morning I finished reading for class tomorrow and through my tears of fear and incompetency I was struck by the words written above. You see, while I read these assignments I am also rejoicing about my beautiful, quiet morning which began with Tai Chi at 6:45 AM and eased into breakfast and reading while the snow gently fell on our sometimes quiet street. I'm glad to enter this task with a sense of calm as I read about the preaching struggles to which which Barbara Shires Blaisdell admits. I lament the routine and reading and thinking surrounding sermon preparation for I feel unworthy of such a calling and un-gifted for it as well. My words will be jumbled, the claims I make untrue, the prophetic word flawed, my sermons un-relatable... these are some of my fears.
Ok, back to the quote... (ugh, what if my sermons are as distracted as my blogging...) I love those moments when you are so full of love and life and happiness and gratefulness and and and...that you want to embody your thanks for whatever or whomever has inspired these feelings. So what ARE some completely unnecessary and unexpected ways to say thank you? Ideas? I always have great intentions of writing someone a letter or sending a package or making a phone call but either my busy schedule, lack of $$, or phone phobia get in the way...
I am often that person that is filled with so much joy and gratefulness that I want to express it, but I fear sometimes the things I may do/say are either over the top or strange. I have a friend who was (and may still be) practicing intentionally telling people the good things she thinks about them. Sometimes her words seemed odd and/or out of context (like when she complemented my laugh in the middle of a meeting when I was not, at the time, laughing), but when good thoughts about someone come to her mind she feels it is only fair to share them. Why keep it inside? Why not brighten someone's day? Because sometimes stating these beautiful truths makes you look or sound weird... That's why I don't always do it. BUT I so appreciate it when someone says random kind words to ME (once I get over that weirdness factor), so why don't we all embrace the weirdness and just say those beautiful things we are thinking about people?
I hope I have found decent ways to thank YOU - if not - keep your eyes out for a "completely unnecessary and unexpected thank you"...I hope.
btw - thanks for reading ;)
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