Mazeltov

The year after Jason Parkhill graduated from high school, the whole Senior Youth Group of our church came to my house for a weekend retreat  - to consider life and make face masks, to laugh and eat and stay up til all hours talking. I mention Jason: He has played such a key role in this Youth Group he seemed to be there even AFTER he'd gone off to college. In fact he was there every time he came anywhere near our zip code, both then and in the years that have followed as, from his place in the choir, he has sent beams of positivity over to the corner of the church where the kids all sit, looking so happy. (I call this picture “Sermon? What sermon?”)When not in the pews or on Mission Trips they can usually be found in the specially designated Youth Room which I have haunted for over 25 years, most notably the year I team-taught the Confirmation class.  There, Jason has been an especially faithful presence, from the time he sat in my class until now when he functions as a kind of Visiting Professor of Fun and Lively Talk. (This is he on the right here during the End-of-Church Sleepover of '08.)But today Jason will do something else at our church: Today he will meet his beautiful Kristen and her son Caleb there and be married in a nuptial ceremony where I will get to read a poem and our two great ministers will get to offer prayers and three people will get to sing, including the undauntable bridegroom himself. At 4 o'clock today, in this church that has nurtured so many, a hundred lucky people will get to witness the on-paper birth of a family already well begun. To which I can only say "Mazeltov!"