Last week both the water station and the blessing box were removed from the front yard of the Sellwood Faith House overnight.  Whoever took the blessing box ripped the newly refurbished box right off the base.  This would have taken quite a bit of effort.  The water station was a large plastic tub full of water bottles with WATER painted on the side, much easier to take.  When I discovered the loss I drove around the neighborhood hoping to find the blessing box perhaps discarded on a corner or something.  What would someone do with a little house with a mail slot in it, locked at the back and now with no floor?

I was hurt by the loss of the blessing box and annoyed that someone took the water station- which had a note on it asking people to leave the tote so we could refill the water.  Just the week before a suicidal young woman had reached out to our faith community through the blessing box. We regularly get the most beautiful prayers, life stories, and expressions of joy in the box. Our community takes seriously the responsibility of holding these stories and prayers.  We also always reach out to those who provide us with their contact information, creating a deeper community of care. Someone choosing to remove the box struck at the fundamental nature of how we try to love our neighbors. For a moment a part of me responding by thinking that if the community didn’t want the box, then fine we wouldn’t have a blessing box. Then I remembered that this is not who we are. People can take things and we will rebuild.  People can hurt us and we will still show love to our neighbors.

That afternoon I ordered 2 more water totes, which was a good idea because the one at the Trinity building has now also been removed. Water was out in a box that very night.  Remaking the blessing box is going to take more time and effort and we have decided that we as a community want to build this next iteration together.

Later on in the week I came out of the house to a rose left on the pedestal of the blessing box.  It felt like a gift from a neighbor, honoring our loss and expressing a blessing.  Life can be hard and people do things that hurt or confuse us. As a faith community while we take input in and adjust our relationships as we learn and grow we never use our own hurt to cut off love. We keep choosing love even when it’s hard and that is what makes it a blessing.

-Eilidh