There's a Welcome Here. A Note From Jan.

WELCOME! Love reading, saying or hearing that word. Matt, Luke and Basil met me at the airport Saturday with hugs and welcomes. And it wasn’t just because I’d brought Luke one of Chad’s surfboards as a gift from “Uncle Hot” (their name for Chad). Certainly impressed the agent who checked me in at Logan. Not often they see a grandmother toting a surfboard.

When we pulled up to their house in San Anselmo, the first thing I noticed was Luke’s handmade “WELCOME MOMO” sign, designed to resemble a surfboard with a chunk of it  missing thanks to his creative rendering of a shark’s chomp.  Found another welcome sign on the door to Lily’s bedroom. Small touches to convey a large truth. Welcomes matter.

Soap box moment:  Seems like we find too many ways in our culture, Christian as well as the larger one, to say, “Keep out. You’re not welcome.” To somehow, some way put a shark’s chomp close enough to scare off the unwanted.

As a small child, one of the first songs I learned to sing in Sunday School was, “There’s a welcome here. There’s a welcome here. There’s a Christian welcome here.” We sang it to anyone new who came skipping, skulking or slipping into our class for the first time.

As the preacher’s kid, it never got sung to me.  Guess I was to assume that welcome, tho’ my parents made sure I understood that one of my major roles was to assume nothing of the sort when it came to others.  “Janice Dawn, you must help others feel welcome. It’s important for children to know they belong.”  Big assignment for a spindly legged 6 year old. Welcomes don’t come easily to most of us, though can’t imagine God giving us a pass on that excuse.

It’s small children who seem best at unconditional welcomes. Takes longer to learn to bully, cross arms protectively across our chests, point and judge, or turn our backs on the unwanted.

Love picturing children in the New Testament story, skipping or inching towards Jesus while older folks tried to tell them, “You’re not welcome.  Go home.” While Jesus said, “Let them come.”

Seems to me we need more followers of Jesus who will buck our tendency toward exclusivity or fear-based avoidance in favor of saying, ”Welcome. Come on in. There’s plenty of room at the table for you.”

Speaking of tables.  On the bedside table in Lily’s room, I spotted a gift bag as I rolled my suitcase into her bedroom. Basil, eager as a bunny, to get me to move on into the room jumped up and down and said, “I have a present for you.  It’s in that bag.”  His smile said he’d learned early that, “It’s better to give than to receive.” The bag, decorated with colored eggs and “Happy Easter,” contained a small treasure.  Before I could unwrap it, one small boy squealed, “It’s for you, Momo.  A matchbox car!“

He loves matchbox cars. So to give one to me was to hand me the best treasure an almost 5 year old could imagine. It’s yellow.  And I’ve longed for the yellows and greens of spring to emerge from the gray and white of winter. Who’d have thought God would tap one small grandson to offer me the first yellow of spring. A  yellow matchbox car ready to roll and give me a healthy dose of sunshine, the kind that comes from time spent playing with a treasure called Basil. Oh, yeah. There’s a welcome here.   There’s a Christian welcome here.