It’s anniversary time again and, receiving a coin with the Roman numeral VII tells me that it’s also a jubilee year – a time that lends resonance to my reflection on the providence of grace, particularly the gift of grace found in scraps.

Recovery, as we know, works one day at a time. Looking back over these 2,558 days, I find myself asking in wonder “how did I get here?” Ironically, it’s the very same question I asked in agony before I found the rooms of recovery. As a way of wrapping words around my gratitude, I offer some thoughts about scraps and pilgrimage.

Last Sunday, we heard John’s version of the Feeding of the 5,000. It's a story of God’s miraculous plentitude that we know well. But only in John do we hear Jesus’ direction: “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.”

Only John tells us how Jesus, with exquisite purposefulness, cares for the fragments. He sees the feast that remains within the leftovers. We might think the miracle is that there is enough food for everyone. Yet for Jesus, having enough isn’t the end of the story. There is always more: a meal that depends on paying attention to what is broken and in pieces, what has been tossed aside.

Fragments. Scraps. Crumbs. Leftovers. Lost. Missing. Gone. These are hard words. Do you consider yourself a scrap? During my using life, thinking of myself as a scrap would have been a compliment.

But in Sunday’s Gospel, John tells us that, in Jesus, God takes extraordinary care of the “scraps,” so that none may be lost. God wants to give us what we don't even realize we need. God knows precisely what we need, which is more than we can ask or imagine.

So, let’s think about scraps for a moment. As the son of a quilter, I automatically think of boxes of fabric remnants. I grew up watching my mother carefully gather up scraps from everywhere – childhood clothes (ours and hers), table skirts, Boy Scout neckerchiefs, even old quilt tops – anything that had a thread of life still in it.

These were then sorted by color and type, and carefully stored against the day when they could be lovingly resurrected; pieced and quilted into something of beauty that hadn’t existed before. Now, somewhere in there, she would say, I remember the perfect little bit of yellow. Warmth and beauty created out of what had been cast away. The Kingdom of God can look a lot like a quilt.

A 12-Step meeting is another sort of collection of scraps. Fellow sufferers, who have been beaten down, broken open and, yet with a thread of life still in them, are washed into church basements and other such places, where each one is lovingly resurrected, remade one day at a time into a beautiful humanity that hadn’t existed before. Through the steps and within the fellowship, hope is created in what had been cast away. The Kingdom of God can look a lot like a 12-Step meeting.

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I’ve just returned from vacation. It’s the first time I’ve taken two weeks of rest since I can’t remember when. It was a splendid time with friends, family, and happy places in a spot I called home decades ago; it remains important to me to this day.

This trip “home” was different. Without intending it to, it became a pilgrimage of sorts, with stops at places I had lived, favorite museums and restaurants, and graves of long dead friends. Maybe it was because I had more time, maybe it was the particular headspace I was in, but there they were again…scraps. Scraps of my life before active chemical addiction took root. Scraps that reminded me of the wonderful life I had once lived, but couldn’t live into.

Leafing through this scrapbook of memories, what stood out was the gift of friendship and hospitality – sometimes extended, and far more often received. A pilgrimage of any sort, especially the journey of recovery, is unthinkable as a solo act. Hospitality, given and received, is essential. Every time someone welcomes you, or gives you a suggestion, or shares a mystical insight or spiritual place with you, scraps that had been gathered long ago are shared and find new life.

That new life is evident at every meeting, in person or online, where the gathered faces show us each day the gracious abundance of God operating in us and through us – we who are scrappy scraps, and holy remnants. Broken, yet never lost. By living the 12 Steps we, together, are nourished, strengthened, re-formed, and transformed by grace, to do the work that God has given us to do…to show to the world that recovery is always possible.

And then, 24 hours later, it all begins again. And again. And again. Scraps of experience, strength, and hope are shared, and the result of our various pilgrimages, each of us trudging the road of happy destiny with our companions, is always, always, more than we can ask or imagine.

Paul J.