Signs of joy

My church is known around these parts as "the church with the signs." There is one man, a retired engineer, who has been in charge of changing the thought-provoking message for ... decades. I guess some of the messages get recycled, but generally he meticulously creates a new one every few weeks or so.

Some years ago, I was chairing some committee or other, and I asked this man if he could show me how he updated the signs so we could potentially train one of our young people to take on the job someday. He was most eager to have an apprentice. As I recall, he approached the task with mathematical precision - writing out the message on a smaller piece of paper and taking carefully measurements to determine the optimum length of each line and height of the letters so it would fit the larger sign perfectly, all in his neat and fuss-free printing style. And finding the messages themselves? This was something he and his first wife, now long deceased, used to do together, as an act of prayer and a labor of love for our community. After her passing, he continued. An avid reader, I'm sure he has always found the little nuggets of spiritual wisdom in printed materials as he has told me he is just "too old" to mess with computers. An engineer. Shunning technology.

The apprentice idea never really took hold. I know a few people here and there have done the signs but I can always tell when this man is back on the job, patiently and lovingly carrying on a ministry to the thousands of drivers who pass the signs each day.

He is now 81 and still almost as active as ever. I think he stopped running a few years ago but still plays on our church softball team and on a local vintage baseball team, in addition to having a busy social life with his second wife. Two photos of him, both taken about six or seven years ago, are imprinted on my brain. The first was of him straddling the top of a wall and hauling trusses for the roof of a Habitat house. (I helped with lower-level tasks like insulation and painting.) The second was on the front page of our local newspaper, showing him shoveling snow for his elderly neighbors. Ahem.

The message on the sign today: A heart full of gratitude has no room for despair. Oh, how I need to remember that on my dreary, scavenger-hunt-for-joy days. I have so many reasons to be grateful. So many reasons to seek joy. So many reasons to pray.

--Olive Koffay