The pantry shelf and the auditorium organ
To the editor:
A food pantry shelf and a school auditorium organ may not seem to have much in common. One answers an urgent need. The other preserves a sound that helps tell a town's story.
Yet The Highland County Press recently reported that the Greenfield Foundation's community grants are supporting both.
The Greenfield Area Christian Center received assistance for its food and clothing ministry.
Greenfield Schools received support to help preserve the historic pipe organ at McClain High School. Grants are also going toward the historical society's B&O depot and the Greenfield Music Festival.
I appreciate a town that can take more than one kind of need seriously.
My Christian faith offers a way to understand why. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul describes one body with many parts, each necessary to the life of the whole. The hand is not the eye. Neither can dismiss the other as unimportant.
The same principle should keep Christians from imagining that service has only one worthy shape.
Providing groceries to a family in difficulty matters deeply. So does teaching a child to love music, preserving the memories that give neighbors roots, or creating a gathering where people who have never met can become friends.
This does not mean every project should receive equal support or that difficult choices disappear. A town must weigh needs carefully. But it does mean our concern should be wider than our own interests.
I write from Colorado, not Greenfield, and I know these organizations through the paper's reporting. I was especially struck by the Christian Center's record of helping families. The calling to feed and clothe neighbors runs through the words and example of Jesus. It is the sort of faith that has to put on work clothes.
I hope these grants encourage more people in Highland County to ask how their own gifts can serve someone else. A community does not thrive because everyone does the same job. It thrives when people make room for the contributions of others and do not forget those in need.
The pantry shelf and the auditorium organ both belong to the story of Greenfield.
Sincerely,
Douglas B. Vandergraph
Fort Collins, Colo.