Free to be incomplete

On Friday, I got to hold a baby. I was at a co-op with my daughter, but my teaching job wasn't until after lunch, so I was just looking around for a gap to stand in. The co-op's director came down the stairs with this little pink bundle. The director had many things to do, so I offered to hold the little girl. She wasn't able to stay in the nursery because she was just too fussy for the workers to handle with all the other kids. When I took her in my arms, she was stiff as a board and very tired. She looked at me, and every fiber of her being proclaimed, "YOU are not my mommy." After five minutes, all my learning as a preschool worker at my church came to play, and she relaxed in my arms. Within another five minutes, she was asleep.

Her mom had been going from class to class that day to lead the children in learning the tin whistle, for an end of the year presentation for parents. All the tutors were so grateful for her using her remarkable music skills to lead the kids. I wasn't running the nursery; I wasn't directing the co-op; I wasn't tutoring children; I wasn't teaching the tin whistle. For a short while, I held a baby. I was one piece in a large body of people who were serving each other.

I saw the best definition of community last week on the Burnside Writer's Blog:

The gift of community is that each one of us is absolved of the burden of completeness. In and of ourselves at every moment we can lean on one another for the elements we lack.

I love community, where I can give whatever small piece I have to offer, and God makes something beautiful in the whole.