To our Lighthouse Family,
Every evening at 6PM John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme plays on my phone, it marks an affirmation for the end of my day. I put my arms behind head🙆♂️ and say these words: Nunc Dimittus. It is good. Jeff, Thank your Beloved Creator for the gift of Today. Jeff, what you created, loved, and how you served today was good. Now offer this as worship back to God, who loves to watch you live.
This daily affirmation, taken from the template of how God responded at the end of each day to his daily creation, has me posturing myself in gratitude for the incremental doses of goodness and the story of today.
Anne Frank did something similar, I lie in bed at night, after ending my prayers with the words ‘Ich danke dir für all das Gute und Liebe und Schöne.’ (Thank you, God, for all that is good and dear and beautiful.)
As we approach the end of the Covid season and winds of change begin to temper, it might be good to collectively acknowledge something similar. As I think about Lighthouse and the nearing eighteen years I have led and served this community, I am filled with gratitude,“It is good.”
The past two years have been the most difficult years of my tenure. My personal Dark Night of the Soul season was followed by sixty weeks without an in-person gathering, where almost all of our leadership team moved, many of our church members left, and our income dropped below 1/3 of pre-covid income. And yet I authentically felt I could join in Paul’s refrain, “In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” Somehow the loss, deficit, vacancy, and vacuumed resources never touched the joy of Christ’s presence, the peace of God’s nearness, the love of Jesus’ gospel. I remain simply grateful.
Unexpected miracles happened along the way. Our bank gave us a three month mortgage reprieve, rolling it to the end of the loan term. A church group offered to rent from us for the months of April and May protecting us from what could have been our first quarterly shortfall. And last Sunday, was our first gathering since the pandemic - fourteen Lighthousers were present. One of them was a nine-year old boy, Dae’Vaugn, who we baptized out at Aquatic Park during the pandemic. At the close of the service he walked up to Jeff and handed him a $100 bill for the offering. Something he had saved for that very moment. This put a lump in my throat and tears in Jeff’s eyes. It was so pure, so sweet, so sacrificial. In that one moment Christ appeared to us in the form of a nine-year old and blessed us.
There is one more miracle. One you and me get to participate in and enjoy. Several weeks ago, Bruce Cockburn reached out and said that during the pandemic he wrote four new songs. He said he was going to do an online demo release the "Four New Songs" and donate the proceeds from that digital event to Lighthouse. 😍❤️🤯!!!! The timing and gift had Christ’s fingerprints all over it. Bruce was offering a gift of gratitude for finding a spiritual home after “forty years in the wilderness.”
On Sunday May 2 at 11am (PST) Bruce will release the four pandemic created songs. Join us for this event, please. There is a suggested minimum donation price of $20, all of which would be incredibly helpful to us as we navigate the post-covid challenges of rebuilding, replanting and relaunching Lighthouse as well as our continued support of the anti-human trafficking in Nepal and our own unhoused population in the City.
Be+Loved,
Jeffrey Garner