Vinefest

 

Version 2This past Saturday Dave and I joined a group of our friends at the Montpelier Wine Festival on the grounds of James and Dolley Madison’s beloved home.  Weather-wise, it was one of the warmest, most beautiful days we’ve enjoyed all spring.  Combined with great friends, Virginia wine and snacks, it was the perfect recipe for some much-needed down time.

Much earlier that morning I’d gotten up at “0’dark thirty” to work at a charity ticket sale at a local department store to raise funds for our local Habitat for Humanity organization.  I was there from 5:20 am until 10:00 am.  By the time we arrived at the winefest at one o’clock, I’d already been up for nine hours.  Luckily, I had just enough energy to enjoy the afternoon with our friends.

Sunday morning we were up early again for Mass at 8:30 and afterwards grabbed some breakfast with church friends before returning to the church to pack meals for Stop Hunger Now.

SHN packing 2015

This is the second year our parish has held the event.  Throughout the year, we hold fund-raising events to cover the costs of the meals, culminating in the packing event where  volunteers donned in hairnets, measure ingredients into bags, weigh the bags for consistency, seal the bags and pack them into boxes.  Each time 1,000 meals are packed, a gong is struck to spur us on. Volunteers range in age from elementary age children to senior adults, all working as a team, each doing what they can. Together, we packed almost 14,000 meals in just under two hours.

I couldn’t help but see this event as a living example of Sunday’s Gospel  (John 15:1-8), the story of the vine and the branches.  We were all working as parts of the same vine, the older branches and the new shoots.  As I thought more about it, I realized that my weekend, with its fullness of stuff echoed the same theme where my own branch was pruned a bit; my time was pruned but the result was new life in the seeing of the Gospel coming to life and in the lives of those I’ve helped, although I will probably never seen them.

It also didn’t escape me that my time at the winefest was also vine related.  And, after realizing that, I discovered a title for today’s thought.

If you’d like more information on Stop Hunger Now and how you might like to be involved, here is their web address:  http://www.stophungernow.org.

 

 

 

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