Dear Church Family and Friends,
Last week I attended a grief counseling training at The Center for Loss and Life Transition in Fort Collins, Colorado. It was an emotionally demanding week as I and 23 other students practiced our newly acquired skills on each other in mock counseling sessions. When it was all over, I spent a day in Denver with my family before flying home. Along with two other families with children, we visited Denver’s Downtown Aquarium. Of the more than 500 species of animals at the aquarium, what sticks out most vividly in my memory isn’t the shark tank or the tiger prowling next to pools of water. It is a fish tank packed with relatively small, brightly colored fish swimming in a myriad of different directions.
For reasons upon which it is hard to place a finger, the sight of these fish filled me with a sublime happiness. Perhaps, after a week of thinking about death, these fish gave me a renewed appreciation of life. In that moment, they represented for me joy and vitality in abundance.
I offer this image of a tank full of teeming fish now as an image to spur reflection. Imagine that each of the fish in this tank represents something in your life for which you are thankful. Take a moment to not only feel gratitude for the individual fish before you but also for the tank as a whole. Let yourself experience an abundance of appreciative joy. You may then find yourself offering up a prayer of thanksgiving for a life packed with blessings.
Your brother in Christ,
Pastor Brooks
