Comfort Care

I began sorting through the donations for soldiers overseas this morning; a credible pile in the basket after only a few days. I am grateful to say that this stuff comes from people who are on both sides of the Just War fence. This is work that only the Holy Spirit makes possible: disciples who are unequivocal about loving their neighbors-- even the ones in fatigues toting weaponry. Praying for and caring for God's children in tangible ways, even as they work against the violence that involves so many of them right now.

There are two reasons I started this. I first got the idea when my son's school set home a note requesting donations for Iraq-based military personnel. Then, as I told you, a young friend from my home parish, an alum of our youth group, was just discharged a few months ago. Last month, his former unit shipped out to Afghanistan (Airborne Infantry: paratroopers, jumping out of perfectly good airplaines. Go figure). His younger sister came to church last week with a list of requests from his buddies. (Not surprisingly, their list ran much heavier to snackage!)

Currently I'm dividing Seabury donations between the two recipients (church and school). However, I have a call in to the PTO president, who's supposed to help me set it up independently, because the school program is only supposed to last a few weeks. My hope is to have this be an ongoing effort, shipping items every two weeks to a month or so, depending on how long this all lasts; but quite frankly, that's still a work in progress. Of course, if all the soldiers came home tomorrow, I would gladly drop it all, with much rejoicing.