Skittles

I don’t remember the last time I had Skittles, but a few days ago, someone gave me a sachet of Skittles. The person who gave it to me told a powerful story about Skittles. If you open a sachet of Skittles, you will find about a dozen of them, and each one of them is sweet and brings so much joy. Skittles come in different colors and flavors, but they are the same. You will never see anyone chomping on Skittles and being sad simultaneously - we derive deep joy from each one of those delicious Skittles.

We celebrated our Youth Sunday on May 4th, and on that day, we saw five of our youth who will graduate from high school in a few weeks and head off to college and their lives' next chapter. It was fantastic hearing them preach and share thoughts about their personal growth and challenges; they, too, have been through a lot over the last several years, having survived the pandemic, and they are now moving up. Thinking about Skittles reminds me of these five beautiful kids, each one different from the others, but they are growing into responsible adults. (I plan to write about what they shared in the near future.)

It is fascinating to see children grow up in a church - it is fulfilling to see the children we baptized not that long ago grow up and take on different personalities. Watching and listening to them was a moment of pure joy for me, and I thank God for their lives, the families that birthed and nurtured them, and the church that became a sachet to hold them together, like a sachet of Skittles.

There’s a Jewish wedding tradition where a couple, on their wedding day, is given a broken glass in a bag. The glass is broken, but it is in a bag. You may wonder why a couple would be given a broken glass in a bag, but the point of the tradition is to convey that marriage isn’t supposed to be hunky-dory, happily ever after, all joy and smiles, all sweetness like a sachet of Skittles. That’s not what marriage is about. It is about the recognition that there are also times when we experience pain, hurt, disappointment, anger, depression - moments and situations that encapsulate the darker side of life.

An interesting part about this tradition is that the bag signifies the presence of God. God holds everything about us - including our brokenness - together in a bag, like Skittles in a sachet. It is a unique assurance that God never abandons us, nor does he abandon the couple, even when life and relationship turns south, when we are at the roughest and toughest place, when we have lost hope in each other and the people we have elected to serve our interest-even at those moments, God holds us, all of us, like Skittles in a sachet.

Like Skittles, we all come in different colors and different flavors, but we give the same wonderful thrill. And like Skittles, every human being has the capacity to offer pure joy to others.

But if we look around, where do we see any sense of joy? Where are the Skittles that bring us some semblance of joy? Have you experienced the thrill of Skittles lately?

I read a letter from the Presiding Bishop, Sean Rowe, about the Episcopal Church’s decision not to partner with the federal government in resettling refugees from South Africa. This was a morally courageous decision by our Presiding Bishop.

The following day, a parishioner, Steve Alpern, forwarded an email from the Chair of the Christ Church Interfaith Refugee Ministry, Ann Barnes, about the federal government’s decision to end the temporary protection status of Afghan Refugees. This decision effectively puts 40,000-70,000 Afghan Refugees at risk of being deported back to Afghanistan.

I do not need to go back in time to recount what happened, why we found ourselves in Afghanistan, and how we left Afghanistan. But it bears remembering that some of these Afghans did work with the United States Mission in Afghanistan, and that is why they got the benefit of relocating to the United States. Even though some didn’t do anything to support the mission in Afghanistan, they still find themselves here. The fact that they are here is what matters, and that in itself invites our moral and Christian duty to protect and support these vulnerable Refugees.

Since we are well aware of the brutal and restrictive nature of life in Afghanistan, why in God’s name do we have to end the status that offers them some dignity and protection in the United States?

This is what baffles me - here we have a group of supposed refugees from South Africa who are under no political threat. These people live in a free and democratic country. These people live a life of relative luxury. Some of these people live in their own enclaves where they have their own currency. These people control most of the wealth in South Africa. These people have at least as many resources as most Americans. But some way, somehow, we find it necessary to offer them a sanctuary in the United States, but we want to expose others, people who are under real threat in their former home of Afghanistan, to go back to that country. How does that even make sense? Maybe I am naïve.

I am glad that the Presiding Bishop took a moral stand. I am sure he has also had a bag of Skittles before and knows very much how different in flavor and color that they are, and yet, they offer the same thrill.

And that's the gift, if only we realized that we all come from the same roots. If only we realized that there is no such thing as ethnicity, that we all come from the same human beings. If only we realized that the same blood runs through each of us - yes, our blood types might differ, but the color is always red. Come to think of it, all our cultures are related because all human beings are interrelated.

This idea may appear to be elementary, but the honest truth is that this is the one reality that has the capacity to destroy all our partisanship, separation, silo mentality, and false sense of identity. This is the kind of awakening that we need within our lives, our communities, and our world.

If only we can embrace the idea that we are all like Skittles in a sachet - God’s protective cover. We come in different colors and different flavors, but we each have the capacity to bring about pure joy to others and to make another life breathe easier. 

As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived” is to be successful. How successful do you want to be?

Dare to make others breathe easy. Dare to make life joyful, like Skittles.

Happy and Glorious Eastertide,

Manny+