Postage Stamps

I smile every time I put postage stamps on something at the office. I smile because I remember the woman who sold them to me, or at least our conversation.

I'm more than a little uptight about flags and such in churches. We can have that conversation any time, but well, not here and now. Unfortunately, to get stamps with something other than flags on them, one must go to a post office. The last time the church needed them, it was a stop on my way to somewhere else, so I told the secretary I'd just pick them up.

I waited in line, of course, because that's what you do at the post office. The conversation went like this:

"Do you have rolls of forever stamps in anything other than flags?"

"No. But we have lots of designs in sheets."

"Well, it's for a church…" (I had no clue how to finish that sentence. I try hard not to start a debate of any sort in an encounter that should be purely transactional. Yes, this is a learned skill for me.)

"Oh! Love! We have all sorts of those."

And she handed me an assortment of stamps, one hundred total, with all sorts of love designs: a heart in sealing wax, roses, words in a heart shape, flowers in a heart shape.

On the rare occasions I put a stamp on something, I'm pretty much like a little kid choosing a favorite sticker now.

Mostly, though, I think of that postal worker, and her exclamation, "Oh! Love!" In a time when I worry about the church's reputation of being anti-LGBT, dogmatic, legalistic, hypocritical, and a whole bunch of other not good things, all of which make me hesitant to say, "I'm a pastor," her response was life-giving.

Because when people hear "church," I wish more of them were able to exclaim, "Oh! Love!"