Old Grey Chewing Gum

The year was 1990 and it was the year after our daughter Stephanie had died. I was going through a particularly dark time with my prayers and understandably I felt as if all the sparkle had evaporated from deep inside me. Instead of water, joy and light there was darkness, gloom and sadness. Instead of my prayers being chocolate and mangoes, it felt as if I was chomping on a piece of grey old chewing gum.

And this went on not for days, but for months. Fortunately retreat came up and I went to the retreat conductor to seek advice.

He listened patiently to my sad little story, offered his condolences and then asked  ‘If your prayers just feel like grey old chewing gum then why aren’t you just offering that up?’

‘Because’ I explained, ‘I am embarrassed by my piece of old grey chewing gum. God deserves better and I want to offer something much more sparkly but I have nothing else to give. I would be ashamed to offer him my old grey chewing gum’.

The conductor again listened patiently and reiterated the obvious. “David, if a piece of mangled old grey chewing gum is all you have to offer then just offer that. If that is all there is then it will be an authentic and honourable gift of prayer and God will accept it gladly and joyfully. It is not a sin to offer something that we think is sub standard. The sin, if I may say so, is to become a bit self centred about our chewing gum and to pretend that we know what God wants from us. To cling to it or allow it to cling to you, will mean that that is all you ever have to offer.”

Point taken Fr. Retreat conductor. Maybe the grey old piece of chewing gum was exactly what God wanted to take from me.

And so I began. It was excruciating at first. It was embarrassing and I felt as if I could be doing better, should be doing better. It took several dark agonising months before I found something other than grey old chewing gum on my plate which I could then offer to God in my prayers. It didn’t happen overnight and it certainly didn't happen easily.

But the confronting truth I learnt was this. That in order to get rid of the grey old chewing gum I had to first offer it to God. To continue to hold it and guard it jealously to myself could only mean that it would be with me for the rest of my life to the exclusion of everything else and that is not what my daughter would have wanted and it is certainly not what God wants.

To be honest sometimes the bit of grey chewing gum is still there as a side serve and the trick is to offer it with just as much relish and just as swiftly as the mangoes, Tim tams and the glass of very good red.

Now I tell you that story for two reasons.

First, as a way of encouragement to you. It may well be that someone who is listening to this or reading this is going through the ‘old grey chewing gum phase’. If this is you, I encourage you in the strongest and yet most compassionate way to simply offer up your grey old piece of chewing gum and to do the same tomorrow and the next day and the next day and… you're beginning to see a pattern here right?

The second reason I tell you this story is because it fits very nicely with the widow’s mite in the gospel today.

Maybe the widow felt squeamish and embarrassed, particularly if she had to make her offering in front of everyone. Remember that our Lord and the disciples were watching people putting their cash into the plate.

Or maybe the widow was a little further down the track. Resigned to the fact that she was a widow which was at the bottom of societies scrapheap and while she was not cheerful and chipper she was tolerably OK, knowing this was what she had to do and she was just simply batting it out and seeing where this next little path of her life would lead her.

Or maybe… and this is what I would like to believe even though I have no proof of it… Maybe she was comfortable and joyful in offering her two coins to God. Yep, for the time being at least this is all I have and I know God rejoices in my gift even if it is not as much as the boys from the top end of town. These two little coins are all that I am and the rest is over to you God. There is a real sense in which these two coins are everything. It's my very self that I am giving over.  And aren’t you just the most marvellous God for accepting my two little coins or my piece of old grey chewing gum. You are the loving God who rejoices in what I thought was a little gift, but is actually worth more to you than anything else in the whole wide world.