Reflections on the Chapel of the Cross

Margaret and Reid Conrad

This summer our family gazed at the stars from open pastures in South Carolina and from planetarium seats in Boston. Then we watched as Mars came into perfect world view. To study the heavens is to understand awe. But a close second is to watch a child watching the sky. You see the delight of discovery as individual stars and planets are recognized and then the greater wonder over the relationships of constellations and galaxies.

When asked to write our thoughts about stewardship and the Chapel of the Cross, it seemed an apt analogy. The Chapel of the Cross has been so good to us. Our sense of the Chapel Hill community is grounded in our congregation. Over the past 10 years some of our deepest friendships have grown from this parish. Since our children were quite small they have been involved in a number of the many opportunities our church offers families. Sunday school, preschool, vacation church school, chapel, children's choir, christenings, pageants. They have also been 'included' in an array of adult-related activities. Helping sort and set up for the ABC sale, preparing food for the homeless shelter, setting up for Sunday school lessons, cooking for Habitat workers, waiting-waiting-waiting during long meetings for church school, long-term planning, personnel, ABC sale, preschool…each of these opportunities has provided us with different gifts. Our youngest, Lucille, especially remembers taking communion from Tammy. For nine-year old Matson, hearing the bishop's sermon was an important event. Adams, at 12, has the long, happy memory of a decade of Christmas pageants, even from the perspective of the back end of a camel. Margaret watched in gratitude as a fellow parishioner reached out and guided her brother in Iowa through a difficult overseas adoption. Reid will always remember a New Year's evening christening in the Chapel.

When you pause to reflect on the breadth of opportunities for families and individuals in our parish, it is wide. As our children grow older it is bringing all those different activities into focus and relationship that is the challenge. It is finding God in the face of another child at school more easily because you've been taught to look for God not only in the sacred but also unexpected places. It is working to balance the demands of family, profession, community, and self, with the support and wisdom of clergy and church friends. It's bringing the serene, transcending loveliness of our sanctuary and church community to our home, school, and work. It's committing the time and energy for our family individually and as a whole to find our spiritual constellation. This is what stewardship means to us: the receiving that inspires the giving until the two are indistinguishable.