Gather up the Fragments: a poetic reflection on John 6:1-15
Daily Office Readings for Friday, January 28, 2022: AM Psalm 40, 54; PM Psalm 51
Gen. 17:15-27; Heb. 10:11-25; John 6:1-15
“Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.”
I’ve always wondered
what became
of those twelve baskets of bread crumbs.
Did the disciples take some with them,
much in the way
I’m allowed to take home
some food for my supper
for having volunteered at the food pantry?
Did they feast on one of the baskets themselves,
laughing, and smiling, and still
in slight disbelief?
Did they give them all away,
as people left with the crowd?
Did they take some to the synagogue
and plop them down on the altar as a tithe,
and say,
“Give thanks for God’s goodness?”
Perhaps the bigger miracle
was not the transformation of five loaves
and two fishes
into something more.
Perhaps it was
that the disciples
somehow managed to gather up all the crumbs,
and no crumb was left behind…
Is it possible that every crumb
found its way into a human digestive tract?
Because none of us, to my knowledge,
has ever managed
to gather up all the crumbs
of ANYTHING…
And we are left
to our own imaginations
to speculate on the fate of the crumbs.
Is it possible
that this story
is as much about
leaving no one behind
even if the world sees “a crumb”
because,
in the end,
crumbs are what composes abundance?
Maria Evans splits her week between being a pathologist and laboratory director in Kirksville, MO, and gratefully serving in the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri , as Interim Priest at Trinity-St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Hannibal, MO.
Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Loaves_and_Fishes_by_John_and_Helen_Mary_Skelton_(4739074036).jpg
