We are green!

No it isn't St. Patrick's Day, but it is green in Alamosa. We can now drink, cook, clean, and bathe in the water. It is still a little too much chlorine for my liking but at least it is safe levels again. No more salmonella. We have helped one another and listened to each other complain about the problem with the water. We have been here for our neighbors and community to provide water for so many who needed it.

As we sat on couches in our parish hall knitting and being together, at the end of a few of those long days we would get a bottle of wine out and just celebrate together our work and our community that we are building together. I am reminded of the story of Jesus and the wedding at Cana. "Fill the jars with water." We saved the best wine for last instead of serving it first. We got to celebrate with one another, not only our accomplishments but our willingness to work together and to reach out to one another in new and meaningful ways. We had communion together - not in the classical sense of gathering around the altar in the sanctuary, but yes we had communion.

We came together to eat and drink and be joyful together. We were celebrating life together. This communion was at least for me more fulfilling than the communion that we share on Sunday mornings. We were living the moment together and were reminded of whom we belong and why we are here, to love one another.

There is something that I ran across earlier in the week that I have kept and it seems to me says all that I would like to say about this communion.

It doesn't matter your age, your color, or whether your parents loved you or not. (maybe they wanted to, but couldn't). Let that go. It belongs to the past. You belong to the now. It doesn't matter what you have been, the wrong you've done, the mistakes you've made, the people you've hurt.
You are forgiven. You are accepted. You're okay. You are loved in spite of everything. So love yourself, and flourish the seeds within you.

CELEBRATE YOU!

Begin now. Start anew. Give yourself a new birth TODAY!
You are you, and that is all you need to be. You are temporary. Here today and gone tomorrow. But TODAY - today you can be a new beginning, a new thing, a new life. You cannot deserve this new life. It is given freely. That is the miracle called God. So celebrate the miracle, and Celebrate You!