Trails of Love

It’s Fabio Napoleoni’s fault. Or maybe Linus from Peanuts.
But as I was walking through Hobby Lobby the week before Christmas,
Impossibly stealthily,
Dangling a set of wind chimes from each hand,
I found myself imagining that a trail of music notes was behind me,
Gently floating as bubbles blown into a breeze.
I mentioned this image to Barb My Art Teacher as we moved from aisle to aisle, but, honestly, I forgot about the experience until Allison My Guidance Counselor and I hung the wind chimes outside my classroom on Monday afternoon.
As the wind chimes once again dangled from my hands, I caught myself imagining that same trail of music notes—
Only this time I wasn’t absent-mindedly walking through the aisles of a large, retail store.
This time I was intentionally walking around my classroom,
Hoping that those music notes would subconsciously sink into my students’ lives and influence them for good.

Each Wednesday night before choir practice, I read a scripture passage from the week’s lectionary readings and offer a brief devotional thought. Last night as I read the passage, I noticed my mind once again returning to that trail of music notes—only this time it wasn’t just a trail of music notes that I imagined being left behind—it was a trail of freely given love and grace.

“For surely you have already heard of the commission of God’s grace that was given me for you… Of this gospel I have become a servant according to the gift of God’s grace that was given me by the working of his power…So that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known.”(excerpts from Ephesians 3)

How powerful is this passage, friends? God has commissioned us—called us—given us the task—of sharing grace with the world—the grace given each person who believes—the grace that allows each of us the wisdom to see and know and believe in the vastness of God, the variety of God’s expression in this world, and the wisdom that exists around us!

So I shared my music-note-trail image with the choir,
Only I challenged them not only to leave music notes behind them
But also to leave notes of grace—
Nuggets of love—
So that everyone who walks behind may be subconsciously
affected by love
freed by grace and
changed for good.

May it be so with you, too, friends.
And may we, together, fill this world with trails of love.