Gravy Time

(Last Sunday, on the eve of Thanksgiving this gorgeous horn of plenty covered our altar at church. I couldn't take my eyes off the lushness, the beauty and the floral piece reminded me all over again of the beauty of this thing we call life. I didn't have a camera but my friend Dr. Tom Vetter did and captured this moment beautifully. The arrangement was made by one of our members, Buddy Robbins for Southside Baptist Church, Birmingham, AL.)

When I first came to the church as Pastor a friend brought me a large manila file folder one day. "Have you ever had a gravy file?" She went on to explain, "Years ago when I taught school somebody gave me a manila envelope which she called a ‘Gravy File.’ When good things happened--notes, cards, letters--photographs or funny cartoons--you put them in your gravy file. From time to time you pull out the file, spread out the contents and remember.”

I put my new gravy file in a hanging drawer next to my desk. Through the years when I would receive something that lifted me up and make my heart sing--I would place it in the file.

The dictionary says that gravy is the juice that flows from the meat. It's the overflow that comes from the cooking. It's the succulence that adds spice and richness to the meal. No good Thanksgiving dinner would be really complete without the gravy. And no real Thanksgiving holiday will be complete unless we spend some time spreading out before us the faces and events and mementos that keep us going this year.

Most of us have a gravy file whether we call it that or not. Locked in our hearts or buried deep in some drawer or cedar chest are the symbols of the things we hold dear in our lives. The problem is that in the rush of so much, we often fail to remember these special things.

Open up your gravy file this week and so many things that you have forgotten may just come tumbling out. I found a birthday card from my ninety-three old adopted mother who was in my church years ago. There is an old fading piece of paper with the childish scrawl which reads: "Tell everybody I love you, Daddy." He left it on the pulpit one Sunday and wanted me to make that announcement over our public address system. There is a Christmas card with a whole cover filled with Santa Clauses. Opening it up there is nothing but an "X." She couldn't write but she remembered the help the church gave her all year long. Looking at her card I remember she gave me more than I ever gave her. Among that stack of treasures I pulled out a letter-sized drawing from little Callie in which she included a Poam (poem). "Roses and red, Violets are blue, You are so spechul, And your wife loves you." One of the funniest things I have kept is the Christmas card my little girl gave me one year. It said: "Happy Birthday to My Godfather." She couldn't read but she thought that card was cool. There is a photograph of the summer we spent in England before the kids left home. There is the yellowing obituary announcement of my mother's death. There is the quote somebody gave me when I left a church in her handwriting. It was a quote from Katherine Mansfield, "How hard it is to leave places, however carefully one goes. You leave bits and pieces of yourself fluttering on the fences, little rags and shreds of your very life." And those words sent me back to other places and other times.

Don't let this Thanksgiving slip by without you spending some time remembering. Turn off the television. Do not answer the phone. Sit in silence and open up your own gravy file. Let the memories wash over you.

The world seems hell-bent on crowding out all the special things that us make us healthy and keep us going. This constant barrage of terrorist warning, war talk, up and down economy and trouble everywhere makes it hard to keep our bearings .Robin Williams calls all of these: the weapons of personal destruction. Let us pause and remember that first Thanksgiving. It has been a hard year. Many of the pilgrims had lost family members and friends. They were far away from home. The crop that year was barely enough to keep them going. And they paused one day to remember the blessings of their lives. They looked back on the long hard road they had traveled. They gave a thanks that even though things had been difficult life was precious and special and never to be taken for granted.

Those first Thanksgiving kept them going through the long hard winter that lay ahead. May our own remembering fill us with courage for our own journeys.