Gift

We give thee but thine own,
whate'er the gift may be;
all that we have is thine alone,
a trust, O Lord, from thee.

All that we have, especially life itself and the lives of those we love, is ours only by the grace of God, and even then only for a Time. And at the end, it comes to us to offer every gift back in gratitude and love, not resentfully as though we had it as entitlement and right in the first place. I remember this most in the life, ministry and witness of Father John Claypool, first a Baptist pastor and later an Episcopal priest, who brought it as a most powerful Theology of Gift after the death of his daughter Laura Lu.  

Comes to mind this foggy morning, the offertory hymn that we often sang at St Andrews Episcopal Church during my growing up years. Comes to mind as I hear from a friend that their beloved dog Lucy is not doing well even under veterinarians' urgent care after having been shot by a neighbor. Responding to her, I'm trying to set aside my outrage that both nature and humans can be so cruel and mean, to set that aside as irrelevant in the moment, and encourage both them and myself to focus on life as gift for a Time only.

So much comes back. May 2018, wee hours of a morning, following the screaming ambulance to Pensacola and thinking about Malinda, that if this child dies I will no longer know who I am. Some twenty years ago, in the ER praying for William and whispering in his ear "Jesus loves you, William" as his mother and step-father sit stunned, watching their seven year old son's posturing movements as deadly symptom of traumatic brain injury; and, days later, asking myself, and my congregation at Grace Church, PCB, "Can the faith of Tom Weller survive the death of William Hall?" I told them honestly, and admitted to myself, that I did not know if my faith could survive the little boy's dying. Now, two decades on, I will say that faith seems to have survived, terribly challenged and enormously changed, less naive and perhaps more mature if not as precious. As priest in Apalachicola some years earlier, after graveside rites for 18-year-old Monica Padgett as I followed her sobbing father away from her casket. And others, too many gifts returned.

Loss is part of every life, including the loss of one's own self, and to face it is not maudlin, only real. For myself, challenged again and again and never certain whether I will come through it praising God or cursing the sky, I hope always to be able to face it with Father John Claypool's grace, never as having lost an entitlement and always as We give thee but thine own. 

T

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHR1PQ5YwLo