All Saints and Oats

You might wonder what All Saints and Oats have in common. I do too, but let me share my thoughts on the subject with you.

A few years ago, I was doing what most bachelors dread doing; I went grocery shopping. While pushing my cart down the isle and checking off items on my short and badly hand written grocery list, I stopped to buy some grits. In the south grits are groceries. Other days this would have been a quick purchase, but today something on the bottom shelf of the isle caught my eye. Down there with the generic grits and oatmeal boxes and bags was a container of Quaker Crystal Wedding Oats.

Some of you might remember Wedding Oats. They are the oats that have a free plastic pastel colored glass inside the box. These are the oats my Nanny bought. She liked the free glass. It made her think she was getting a good deal. I guess a free glass is the adult version of a prize in the bottom of a cereal box.

I stood there looking at the oats. They weren't on my list, but they brought Nanny to my mind. I had stood at her graveside three years earlier. And now in the cereal isle I felt like she was standing there with me. Crystal Wedding Oats weren't on my list, but they made it the cart and went home with me that day.

All Saints is celebrated on November First or on the First Sunday in November. On this day we remember and give thanks to God for the friends and loved ones who are in God's care now. All Saints is also a time when we remember that those loved ones aren't really gone from our presence either. We have said good bye to them, but in the mystery of faith they are still with us. The faithful are Saints now. They are witnesses.

These witnesses are present with God. And from time to time God reminds us that when God is present with us, the Saints in God's care come along for the ride too. We are not alone.

When we celebrate Holy Communion we come into the presence of God. But we also come in the presence of those who are present with God now in eternity. We have a reunion, but chicken isn't on the menu. This meal is one of bread and shared cup.

But communion isn't the only time we come into God's presence or into the presence of the Saints. Sometimes God reminds us of God's care and the love of those who are in God's care now over a warm bowel of oatmeal and cold orange juice in a plastic pastel tumbler. Amen.