October Is Appreciation Month at St. Ambrose

It’s September, the Rockies are making another come-from-behind push for the playoffs, teachers, students, and staff members are back at school or university, many of us are back from summertime travels, and I notice that my fall calendar is filling up very quickly. But there is always time to appreciate someone, right?

I am designating October as “Appreciation Month” at St. Ambrose. It’s easy to be an “arm-chair quarterback”, a second-guesser, a complainer, a critic, or a judge of our fellow human beings. On the other hand, it takes a little bit more time and the expenditure of some “creative capital” to be someone who appreciates others. I believe Jesus calls us, among other things, to engage in the discipline of appreciating. “Love one another as I have loved you” comes to mind, and part of loving one another is appreciating one another.

Once we stop and think for 30 seconds, it’s not that hard to do; t’s not an extremely difficult discipline to enter into. For once we stop and think about it for a few moments, there are countless people that we can appreciate, from our spouses and children and parents to the musicians at St. Ambrose, from the people who treat our water or pick up our trash to the folks who have been so diligent in tending to the garden and flowers and mowing at St. Ambrose this summer, from those who teach our students to the students who are so eager to learn. Some of these people we see everyday. Some of them we may never see. You and I may never meet any of the firefighters who are working so hard to contain the wildfire up by Gold Hill this week. But we can say a prayer of appreciation for them.

Sometimes – human nature, perhaps? – we forget to appreciate the ones who do the most for us. If someone in our family has cooked most of the meals, day in and day out, for the past 30 years, do we regularly express our appreciation to her or him, or do we just take her/him for granted? If another member of the family has done something similar with respect to taking out the trash or paying the bills or doing the laundry, do they know of our appreciation for them?

The same dynamics can go on in our church community. Folks can be very generous in sharing their time, their gifts, their energy, and we can take them for granted. Or, we can regularly appreciate them for what they do. We can thank them personally. We can write them a personal note. We can pick up the phone and tell them what specific thing they did recently that we really appreciate. Here’s what I notice: It feels good to be appreciated, and it feels good to offer appreciation to another person. And it’s fun to feel good!

So… you can start “warming up” now if you’d like, but I officially pronounce October as St. Ambrose “Appreciation Month”. Your appreciations are not limited to just our members and staff, of course, but I’d invite you to include them in your discipline of appreciating. It’s also fine to appreciate the folks you run into outside of St. Ambrose, who are also doing something to make the world a brighter place.

I appreciate each one of you for being part of this community, for pursuing your walk with Christ, for making others who visit here feel so welcome, for being light in a world that is half in love with darkness. And at this moment, I also want to appreciate Jane, Brad, Cathy, Toni, John G., Marcia, Beth D., Julie, Janet, Holly M., Ellen, Jeff, Beth K., Laurien, Nancy, Mary, David, Kelly, John T., Randy, Christina, Heather and anyone else who might have helped with our “Summer Fun” program over the last 15 Sundays. And I want to appreciate leaders Herb, Montez, Randy, Paul, Matt, Holly, Cheryl, Kris, Kristy, and all the rest of you who made our participation in the Louisville Fall Festival (parade and booth) such a success.

Grace and peace,

Peter+