From The Contract Pastor:

 A Moment for Gratitude

I don't live with a television.

No, it's not a stand I take against the paltry offerings on our airwaves. It's not about the stupidity of watching what celebrities do or don't do. My TV broke just before I began seminary, and I thought: well, that's probably a good thing, otherwise I'll never get all the assigned reading done.

And I've never replaced it.

I enjoy watching husband Tom's when I'm home with him, but otherwise….well, it's like not having a microwave. I just make other choices.

Last Sunday though, I was home in Sultan (as opposed to my other home here in Bellingham), and Tom and I were both decrying the Veritable Wasteland That Is The TV Schedule when we turned to Extreme Makeover. A Navajo family was getting a new living space. Wow. True, the program was edited to prompt the tears to flow, but they were good tears: here's a family that had been making do in a narrow trailer, with tires on the roof to keep it from flying off and not nearly enough room for all 6 members. Their new space was a marvelous, energy-efficient home…but that's not what stuck with me. It was the tears in the eyes of the grandmother as she ran water out of the bathroom tap.

They'd been living with no running water.

For so many of us, this is an inconvenience that prompts either a call to a plumber or one we take in stride as part of a camping trip.

But….all the time? With little kids in the house?

Tom and I get fussed because, in the "wisdom" of the designers of our home, the water goes from the hot water heater, upstairs through the bathrooms and then back down to the kitchen sink: it takes forever for the water to run hot. But we've got it.

You may not be so struck with the delights of indoor plumbing. But do you have space for a garden at your house? Can you have pets where you live? Do you have to weigh whether to replace your old glasses with a new prescription versus going to the dentist?

What are the choices that you take for granted, that really could stand a moment of gratitude?
 

--Pastor Jane

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