A glimpse of heaven...

I've always imagined that it might, in some ways, be like this. Heaven, that is. You meet friends from whom you've been separated for a long time, and it becomes immediately apparent that the love which existed between you has never waned. The conversation resumes where it left off...even years before. You find yourself smiling a lot. And you know that, in some way, you are at home.

On October 19, we returned to our home parish, Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Fairport, New York. The occasion was the retirement of the Rev. Dr. Kent H. Garner who had served faithfully and well in that place for 31 years, including those years in the late 80's when Bethlehem took in our family and then sent us off to seminary.

We weren't so sure going in what to expect. Not that the congregation's hospitality was ever in doubt. But would we remember them? Would they remember us? How polite and formal and stiff might this occasion be, given the years that had passed? So to aid our uncertainty and allay our anxieties we studied an old picture directory...a bit like freshmen cramming for that first big test.

Turns out it wasn't necessary. Although the place is well-stocked with newer members, familiar faces and open arms greeted us the moment we arrived...and remained with us in conversation, laughter, and good memories until hours after we had expected to depart. And it's not as though we had never left. The years were evident enough in graying hair, paunchy bellies and grown-up children. But as it turns out: that which made us one at a time more than twenty years ago still makes us one today.

How wonderful and awesome is the truth that love never ends. It makes me less fearful of dying to think that those from whom we are separated are never completely separated from us. We merely wait until that bright morning when the party can take up where it left off...when the laughter can begin again...and when all that we mean to one another will be made as undeniably real as the precious warmth of an old friend's kiss or an abundant banquet shared around a large and loving table crammed with new friends and old. A foretaste indeed of the feast to come...ours already by grace.

Thank you, Bethlehem, for your love. Thank you, Pr. Garner, for your ministry. And thanks be to God for the celebration that never ends.