{"id":2678,"date":"2012-03-27T08:00:50","date_gmt":"2012-03-27T13:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/hungerrumblings\/?p=2678"},"modified":"2012-03-27T08:00:50","modified_gmt":"2012-03-27T13:00:50","slug":"words-of-thanks-words-of-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worldhunger\/words-of-thanks-words-of-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Words of thanks, words of power"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/52\/hungerrumblings\/2012\/03\/www.randomhouse.com_1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-2680\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/52\/hungerrumblings\/2012\/03\/www.randomhouse.com_1-98x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"98\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a> Not long ago I read a good book: <em><a title=\"Take This Bread on Amazon.Com\" href=\"http:\/\/http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/0345495799\/ref=rdr_ext_tmb\" target=\"_blank\">Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion<\/a><\/em> by Sara Miles. If you haven\u2019t read it, I recommend it highly. (Her second book, <em>Jesus Freak<\/em>, is pretty good too.)<\/p>\n<p>In brief, her first experience of Eucharist as an adult shakes her down to her shoes, and she acts on that by setting up a food pantry at her congregation, even though she has no idea where to begin. Some of her adventures along the way are hilarious; some are heart-rending. It\u2019s a great story and Miles tells it well.<\/p>\n<p>At one point, a group of high-school kids shows up to volunteer at the pantry. This isn\u2019t their idea; it\u2019s their teacher\u2019s idea, and they\u2019re not especially pleased about it. These are tough kids from a tough neighborhood and they don\u2019t want anything to do with this goody-goody church stuff. But their teacher is tougher than they are, so there they are. Miles puts the kids to work.<\/p>\n<p>As the pantry\u2019s customers go through picking out their poultry and produce, they say \u201cthank you\u201d to the volunteers \u2014 to the ones bringing out more food from the back, the ones organizing the shelves, the ones bagging the groceries. Over and over, people say \u201cthank you.\u201d And that melts the kids\u2019 hearts. That\u2019s what turns their stony hearts into hearts of flesh, the words \u201cthank you\u201d spoken to them. It shakes them down to their shoes, that people respond to their acts of service (no matter how grudgingly offered) with thanks. Their lives are transformed.<\/p>\n<p>Powerful, powerful words.<\/p>\n<p>I know how good it feels to say \u201cthank you\u201d because I have so many opportunities to say it. The people who support ELCA World Hunger are so incredibly generous in so many ways \u2014 it\u2019s inspiring how dedicated you are to helping people who are hungry. But what really amazes me is that whenever I thank a Hunger Leader for his or her generous service, what does that person always do? Turns around and thanks <em>me!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>From Miles\u2019 story about the tough kids whose hearts were touched by other people\u2019s thanks to that sweet little dance of \u201cthank you\/no no, thank <em>you<\/em>,\u201d words of gratitude are powerful. As a fundraiser, I know that. As a Christian, I know that \u201cthank you\u201d is the only possible response to God\u2019s generous and never-ending act of grace, poured out on us like a good measure pressed down, shaken together and overflowing. And that\u2019s why they call it Eucharist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Not long ago I read a good book: Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion by Sara Miles. If you haven\u2019t read it, I recommend it highly. (Her second book, Jesus Freak, is pretty good too.) In brief, her first experience of Eucharist as an adult shakes her down to her shoes, and she acts on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-post"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Words of thanks, words of power - ELCA World Hunger<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worldhunger\/words-of-thanks-words-of-power\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Words of thanks, words of power - ELCA World Hunger\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Not long ago I read a good book: Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion by Sara Miles. 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