Simple Gifts

Bold voices sang the National Anthem to conclude the ceremonies. As they did so, the wind blew outside. The American flag which hung out of sight outside the window where I was, fluttered into view, as if those chest-fulls of air were blowing down the Blue Ridge Mountains and into Floyd. The winds of change indeed.

30 minutes before, tremendously talented musicians such as Itzhak Pearlman and Yo-yo Ma played John Williams' arrangement of the old hymn, "Simple Gifts." Watching their fingers defy the bone-numbing chill, I found it ironic that it would require more than simple skills to play the extremely difficult music well.

And yet that seemed to be the theme: simple gifts into grand designs. A black man with humble beginnings writes the pages of history that will never be forgotten. Those singers, musicians, pastors and poets, their pneuma-blown gifts faithfully to transform a wintery day into a historic moment. It all began somewhere for them. And it does for us.

"To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good." (1st Corinthians 12:7). History-changing days are born from simple beginnings. We might not make national news, but we could see the world around us transformed if we might take our simple gifts and use them well.