Seeding Commitments

This weekend I will have the honor of officiating the marriage of two of our members who met through our young adult group and who decided to get married in the Chapel Memorial Redwood Grove. They will stand in our Sanctuary and exchange their vows in a family ceremony and that will be a good thing.

We know that the commitments we make to one another—whether in marriage or in any other kind of relationship— are not one-time: they take on-going effort, especially an investment in these times in which any effort can seem hard. Commitment itself is sort of countercultural in 2024 or so it seems.

I feel honored to be able to work in an environment made possible by commitment. So many of our acts of loyalty to one another are not large and grand such as wedding—instead they are small such as showing up for or checking in on a friend, returning a call from a fellow congregation member, attending a service or a meeting. These simple acts are like seeds where we take the best hopes that we have and plant then in the ground with hope that they will lead to future crops. We water them with our faithfulness and our attentiveness, even when others mock and minimize generosity of spirit. These places where our lives intersect become fertile ground for the seeds of commitment,

This weekend I will celebrate commitments and all the small ways that we commit to our values. I hope you will too!