Perhaps you have experienced a special shared moment.  This past week I had lunch with a friend I had not seen in a long time.  We talked about everything we could think of to catch up.  Finally it was time for dessert.  I love sharing dessert with someone else, or even a group of people around the table.  Something about that is fun for me.  This friend and I both love chocolate so we decided to share this yummy chocolate dessert.  It was so good that I need to tell you about it!

The dessert was a small round moist chocolate cake filled with a thick warm gooey chocolate sauce that oozed out once we dipped into it. At the base of the cake on the plate were raspberry and chocolate syrups along with a few berries.  It was all topped off with a small dusting of powdered sugar. This was the sort of dessert that made your glands activate….those two located on either side of your neck up high, just below your ear and behind your jaw bone.  This would happen at first glance, not to mention how these glands went crazy once the first taste entered your mouth!

We totally enjoyed this, taking turns digging our spoons into the chocolate.  Interestingly, as much as we both loved it, neither of us would finish the last bite!  (Yet we did whittle it down to a very small bite). That has been puzzling me a little as I remember our time together.  Why did we leave the last bite of that awesome dessert on the plate?  Were we too full?  Did we remain persistent, wanting the other person to enjoy the last bite?  Or did we just not want the moment to end?  Can special shared moments ever really end?

nk

It happened on a spiritual retreat. I traveled to a Catholic Retreat Center where I knew no one, but I wanted to hear the speaker. I am of a different faith, but growing up I used to go to a Catholic Hospital with my Dad who was a doctor there. A nun, Sister Philitheus, used to take me by the hand and show me around. We would visit patients and eat cookies. She was my friend. I could hardly say her name, but I learned about faith through her. I loved her.

I discovered that at the spiritual retreat Mass would be given every evening. “Oh great!”, I thought with dismay. “I won’t be able to share in the meal.” I respect the different belief, and yet I don’t really understand. My belief is different. In my belief Communion is open for all. A young priest was there and in preparation for the meal I never heard him say I could not come. So, in my somewhat rebellious nature I suppose, I took it. Then later I felt bad and I went to see him. I confessed and said I respected his faith, his belief. He said, “Did you know that if you are in line, ready to receive the bread and wine, and you want it, I cannot refuse giving it to you”. (“WOW”‘ I thought). “Well”, I said, “I WANT it”.

That was pretty much the end of that discussion. The next night during Mass I  listened again and never heard the words that I was not invited. I got in line. When it was my turn and the young priest and I were face to face, He reached out and gave me the bread out of his faith tradition. I reached out and received the bread out of my faith tradition. And in that MOMENT, I felt that in the Gap between us was the purest expression of Jesus Christ. It was the place both of us had yet to become.

There are many moments of “The Gap”. Two people may not be able to be fully together for whatever reason. Perhaps it is because of circumstances, of different beliefs, distances of any nature. Yet could it be that in the Gap between us is something deeper than each of us yet have or know? It is a mystery I suppose. But that would be Communion. It stretches all boundaries of time and place to make us all one. Such love runs very deep!

nk

Recently I retired after 27 years of ministry.  When God called me I had never seen a female minister.  I had no idea what that looked like.  God said to me in my heart, ” You just be you, and I will take care of the rest.”  That is what I did, and that is exactly what God has done.  At my retirement gathering I was asked to say a “few words”.  How does one say a “few words” after 27 years?  What I came to realize was that it was not about any certain church, any certain building, or any certain program.  It was really about a “thousand faces and a million moments”.  Something extremely special and powerful happened at any given moment for a certain face.  And that face, that person, could tell you exactly what that moment was, and so could I.  We both knew.  God had been present in a very powerful way.  The truth is, we are ALL in ministry.  Any of us can be present and used by God at any given moment to make a difference for all eternity.  “It only takes a moment to be loved your whole life long”, as the song says.

A dear friend encouraged me to write this blog, along with many friends through the years who have encouraged me to write SOMETHING.  I decided to focus on a moment, with the hope that my sharing a certain MOMENT along the way might encourage your MOMENT.  You and I have opportunities to be present in the moment which can be very powerful and lasting forever.  Join me in this journey of “A MOMENT”.

nk