Belonging, and the curious promise of limited time
Wednesday night's AWANA night. The kids have been in the program for three years, and you could say the Wednesday AWANA drill's pretty well established.
One Wednesday night a month or two ago I was pulling out of the church parking lot after dropping my kids at AWANA. The colors of dusk were coming up in the spring sky. I saw two minivans, carbon copies of my own, moving through the lot. I instinctively placed the vans – the moms who drove them, the kids who were in them. And just as instinctively, I knew they knew me too; there was mutual regard between us. And I can't even remember if we waved or not, got close enough to, at that 5:30 pm dropoff passing, but an unbidden feeling of warming washed over me. I felt among friends. I felt, all of a sudden, profoundly thankful for the gift of this town, and of having place in it. For community: knowing and being known.
