Special to United Methodist Insight
What is the holiest place in your house? In the church, we’d probably say it’s the altar, where the candles stand, the Bible rests, and where the Communion elements are placed during our most important service. The altar table is the focal point of our sanctuary.
However, if you think about it, the whole building is remarkable. Every corner of the sanctuary, each pew, window, and wooden beam, are sacred in its unique way. We can’t isolate their holiness. The entire building is impressive. It’s where we come to encounter God. Our eyes and hearts are drawn to the table below the pulpit on Sunday mornings. The table is the visual and spiritual focal point, with the cross and the Bible serving as a middle ground between heaven and earth.
I'll return to my original question. Do you have a place like that in your home? Is it your dining room table? For us, it’s our refrigerator door. That’s always been our sacred spot.
Even now that the girls are grown, and out of the house, it’s still a place to post good news and even better grades. There are silly photographs, notepads, lists, words of encouragement, a Mister Rogers bumper sticker, and mementos from a life spent across North Carolina and several places across the Atlantic Ocean.
The food which nourishes our bodies is inside. You’ll find milk, iced tea, Coke Zero, and leftovers. It’s the outside that feeds my soul. I can stand there and look at the front and sides of the refrigerator and be brought back home.
I need to look at the fridge when I feel untethered and unsettled. The pictures and magnetic poetry calm my soul on random Tuesday nights like the altar does each Sunday morning. I know I’m not unique.
Take a moment and look at the doors and sides of your refrigerator. You’ll find plenty of pictures, lists, drawings, stickers, and living memories that will center you when you most need to be centered. It is a holy place, your refrigerator, without ever opening the door and taking anything from the inside. Just look and be grateful for the testimony it offers about your life.
The Rev. Richard L. Bryant serves as pastor of New Sharon United Methodist Church in Hillsborough, N.C. A graduate of UNC-Greensboro and Duke University, Richard has served churches in England; Raleigh, N.C.; as a missionary in Moscow and Northern Ireland; and in Marshallberg, Ocracoke, Burgaw, and now in Hillsborough. His hobbies include piano performance, storytelling, backyard astronomy, and researching his family’s history.