Wow! Wow! Wow! Y’all, the very first Thanksgiving Worship Service of the Interfaith Coalition of Polk County was a great success. My heart is overflowing with gratitude this morning. We had a full house– Dorothy and Ken counted 97 people! Pastor Mel accompanied us with her beautiful piano playing, Rabbi Goldstein offered us wisdom and music from the Jewish tradition, Rev. Tim guided the ICPC members in delivering our message to the community, Rev. Andy delivered an inspiring sermon, Betz from the Hokori Zen Temple sent me Buddhist wisdom to share, Rev. Nicki invited us up to participate in dropping stones into the water as a reflection of our gratitude and to share financial abundance with kidsPACK. The participation was wonderful! We raised $382 for kidsPACK and had a huge stack of food donated (still in the hallway… Rev. Beth and I are working on figuring out where and when to deliver it!). Thank you to Melissa and our RE kids for decorating the bins to collect the food in.

And,… there was just so much more! If you missed it, please watch it on YouTube:

Pastor Mel tells me that her folks were “super-impressed with how beautiful the spirit was in the room.” Indeed, beauty was present and holding us all in her infinite wisdom, leading the way to more peace and more justice and to the building of Beloved Community. Rev. Nicki (minister at First United Methodist Church) was there with her young son. They spent the service in our “Meditative Maker’s Corner” in the back of the sanctuary. When she first came in she said, “I LOVE this!” and as she left, she gave our kid’s corner “5 stars” as it really helped both her and her son enjoy their time with us.

Fellowship time in our Social Hall (that overflowed into the Sanctuary) after the service radiated a sense of joyful community. People from all the congregations enjoyed the delicious soups that Maggie, Ken, and Dorothy made, along with all the other food they had for us. Maggie, Ken, and Dorothy worked so hard to make this happen. Please thank them! I know they were very grateful for all the people that helped them along the way, too.

I’m also grateful for Jerry and Melissa, our parking engineers! Everyone found a place to park, even in the rain. As always, Petra was my magical ritual artist, helping to set up and find candles at the last minute for the Rabbi. And the choir, thank goodness for Nancy, Mary, Petra, Veysel, and Joshua for providing their singing talents to the event! Who put me in charge of music and singing anyway? Lol- I’m happy to do it and while my voice doesn’t quite hold that same “moose” quality that the Rabbi jokingly said his does, I’m no nightingale. But you know what, it really was the spirit that mattered!

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to everyone that was a part of this spectacular event!