‘Keep the fork’
By Steven Polley
Director of Youth Ministry and Religious Education
The world of modern technology can be a wonderful thing. Yes, we can quickly communicate with others by e-mail. If we need information on something we can easily go to the internet and find what we need. Of course, with all of this modern technology there comes many glitches. For myself, one of these is the many fast forward e-mail messages that I receive. Most of the time I will simply just delete these, but every now and then one will come through that truly hits home. Such is the case for one that was the title for this column. My guess is that many of you have seen this e-mail.
The story referred to a grandmother who was nearing death. As she spoke many times to her pastor, she had one simple request, that she be buried with a fork in her hand. The pastor granted this request, so when people came to the funeral and viewed her body, they of course began to question why she had the fork in her hand. During the funeral, as the pastor spoke, he shared these thoughts and reasons for the fork.
He explained that as she neared death she spoke of her life, and how often the family would gather for a meal, and of course as many of us do, the question would be asked, should I keep my fork? The reason for this is that fact that we are looking forward to the dessert. We ask, should we keep our fork in anticipation of the dessert that may be yet to come. In this case the grandmother’s perspective was that we keep our fork in anticipation of the best part of the meal, the dessert. Her philosophy in life was the same. She truly believed that when she died and went to heaven that the best part was yet to come. She knew that when she would meet God face to face, that she truly would be enjoying the dessert, the best part of her life. So she simply did not want to miss out, she wanted to "keep the fork."
The past couple of weeks I have been on the road a lot. It has been a busy time, and I am feeling quite tired, but it too has been a good time for reflection. As an example, I have been able to for the first time in a long time, enjoy the changing colors of the trees. As I was driving yesterday and thinking about this, I again realized that in many ways God helps us daily to keep our fork. The beauty of God’s daily creation is part of our dessert. God invites us to enter into this beauty and offer thanks for the many gifts he has given us.
As we continue on our pilgrimage of faith, daily drawing closer to God, can we help each other, especially our young people continue to see the beauty in God’s creation? Can we help them learn to keep their fork, knowing full well that daily, God is giving us a taste of heaven? Can we help others see that what lies ahead, is the best dessert ever?