Today is the last day in Volunteer Appreciation Week. In recognition of the many, many people who give their time and their talents to Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen, we hosted a lunch for our volunteers this past Monday. It was a lovely event. The food was excellent. There were goody bags and t-shirts for everyone, and speeches of gratitude from Michael, Steve, Jay and me. To the delight of everyone in attendance, there was even a picture projected onto the video screen of Steve’s baby son. He was smiling and wearing a onesie that said “Future HASK Volunteer.”
The Volunteer Appreciation lunch was just one more in a continuing line of events at reflect sacred community at Holy Apostles. Many different people, from all different backgrounds, coming together in love, for love. We experience this in church, at Sunday Supper, in the way our guests get to know each other, when volunteers who have never met before are thrown together at HASK and get the job done, in the support that people give to one another throughout every aspect of our common life.
This happens in so much of what we do together that it’s easy to take it for granted—but we shouldn’t. We don’t have to look very far to see that this way of being is, if not rare, then certainly not the norm. Is it perfect? It is not; here or anywhere. We all have our angularities, and it takes intentional effort to maintain a commitment to connection. But the more we do so, the more we build a place where that commitment is assumed. And the more connected we are to one another, the more any community expands into a place that, like Holy Apostles, is truly open to all.
Easter blessings,
