Last night I attended one of what must be hundreds and thousands of Christmas dinners, celebrations and parties in the GTA alone. This one was for the participants (both Mentors and Friends) of Friendship ministries. Our family was honoured with the invitation to join them for their Christmas event. If you aren't familiar with their organizations, here's their vision statement:
To share God’s love with people who have intellectual disabilities
and to enable them to become an active part of God’s family.
Now, let me be frank: my contact with those that have intellectual and/or physical disabilities has been very limited. And by very limited I mean, really, non existent. So, as a complete neophyte to this whole experience, let me make just a few, simple observations.
First, I came home at the end of the event and I was getting ready for bed, chatting with my wife about the day and heard myself remarking, "You know, it's hard to come away from that dinner and NOT be pretty happy." There might be any number of reasons for this sort of reaction - and probably they are as numerous as the people who are involved in Friendship. However, I can say that in reflection on the event I would simply say that there was something beatific about the event - and I think it was the love and care. If it truly is on God's agenda (and I think it is) to create loving communities in which pretence, pride and position are offered up on an alter to self denying love, then it was present last night at Mo's Family Restaurant. It was a Kingdom moment.
This leads to observation # 2: Judy. She sat at the table beside ours, and, altho I had never met her before we ended up chatting. A friendly and kind individual I would guess her to be in the 50-55 year old range. She serves in Friendship as a "mentor" to one of the participants and has done so for approximately 5 years. As we got to know one another I could see the passion in her face and hear it in her voice as she described her relationships at Friendship. At one point she remarked that, "There are a lot of meetings that I might miss, but this isn't one of them!"
Now, I don't know a lot about relationships, but this much seems clear to me: no one commits to a relationship long term if it is ALWAYS a giving affair. Barring some relational perversions, we stick with those relationships in which there is an exchange of feeling, good will, at times sacrifice, care and love. Now, this was my first contact with Friendship - but if the number of hugs, smiles, tears and going-out-of-the-way-to-love-one-another moments is any indicator of the Kingdom of God, then it was present last night in a dinner party. It was a Kingdom moment.
Finally, I think there was one other Kingdom moment that needs to be mentioned. It's the Kingdom moment where we (and by "we" I really mean "I") are taught by God in and through unexpected means about our own deficiencies. What I mean is this: I was taught by Zach about his superpowers, hugged by Adrian because he was glad to meet me, welcomed by John-Paul because he knew me from church, and invited to a Christmas party at one more "friends" house, "if I wasn't busy." In short, although I wasn't known to any of them in any significant way, I was taught about being welcomed, invited in and treated as if I belong - and done so with a genuineness and care that seemed, once again, to have the whiff of the Kingdom of God to it.
Having said all of this, I am sure that the leaders of this group would first in line to say that there are challenges to this sort of ministry, and accuse me of being guilty of a "one-off" level of romanticism about the Christmas dinner. But, even if that is true, it's an accusation to which I can plead guilty without too much fuss. In the end, I stand by my observation that a whole lot about what I read in the Bible as descriptors and indicators of the Kingdom of God were there last night. That made it beautiful and a delight to be part of. And while I don't know the date yet, I have next year's party penciled on my calendar already.
No comments:
Post a Comment