Ok.  It all started on Thursday when I went to meet a new friend.  This came about after really feeling a need to find some wisdom in this way off kilter world.  So I did something atypical for myself, and I went to go meet someone new.  I am just trying to turn over all sorts of new leafs (leaves?).  I had sent out an email to a few of the Pastors in town, inviting them to answer some of my questions.   Thursday I went to go and meet my first victim, I mean pastor.

It turned out to be a great meeting.  We talked for about an hour and forty-five minutes, and when we were done, I felt that I had a new friend.  The first thing I asked him was a little bit about his own story and then I let him have it with all of my questions.  I asked many, and he did not shy away from answering any of them.   I was going to write a whole long post about what we talked about, but as I sat down today, something else came to mind.  You see, my new friend is not only a pastor, but he is African American.   He also belongs to a different denomination than the church I attend.

So on Saturday I got up early and went to a baptism for a friend’s child.  I am not Catholic and come from a different tradition, where we do not do that.  While it is a different tradition, I still will go to support their family.  Why?  I love them.  I don’t worry about doctrine. I worry about love.  Afterwards we were invited to celebrate the baptisms with a whole other family, that we did not know.  So here we are my husband and I sitting with our Mexican friends eating Filipino food after a Catholic ceremony.  They were so nice and generously invited us all to this huge buffet table to share their food.  The buffet table was covered, and I only could identify the white rice.  I tried a little of everything, and liked a whole lot of it.

On Sunday we then invited our friends over to swim at our house after church.  We all spent a hot afternoon eating, swimming and enjoying each other’s company.  It was amazingly hot, but so much fun!

My boys and a friend joined us on Sunday.   She is out here in California doing an internship, before going back to college in Illinois.  She happens to attend a university, that belongs to yet again another Christian denomination.  She barely knows my family, but we threw her in with family and friends and she was wonderful.  The kids all fell in love with her.  She was so sweet helping them and playing with them in the pool.  I knew I liked her, but after Sunday, I like her even more.

What was my take away from all of these encounters?  Well, I figured it was just a little glimpse of heaven.  I thought about all of the so called differences between all of us:  culture, ethnicity, age, denomination, and it just did not matter.  We worshipped God this weekend, and honored Him with sharing what we had with each other.  If that isn’t a picture of heaven, I don’t know what is!!