Last Sunday morning, as I stood out there at the door after the 8 o’clock service, a parishioner stopped, greeted me, and then said “you know those questions? They are wonderful!!” It took me a second to get what she was talking about – it’s the list on the back of the half-sheet of paper in the stewardship mailing that we all received.
On the front is a description of the 2023 St. Matthew’s Gratitude Chain project, and on the back is a list of prompts – questions designed to help us come up with things to write on these colored strips of paper that we are dropping off at the Stewardship table out on the patio or mailing back in with our pledge cards. Strips that become links in an ever-lengthening chain that will be part of the Christmas Faire decorations.
So the Gratitude Chain Project is WONDERFUL! It’s simple and it has a real physical component: we hand write something, rather than text, type, dictate, or just think it. And the chain that is being created is this amazing metaphor of how, in community, gratitude links us together. We are all connected. What made you smile today and why? What is your favorite thing to do with your friends? What is something that makes your life easier today? What do you like most about your family? What is something you’re good at?
Science tells us that if we can get better at noticing, and being grateful for, the countless gifts we receive every single day, we’ll be healthier, happier, and more in relationship with other people. Gratitude is that good for us...(read more)
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