Thirty five years ago, I was a guest in the home of a lady whose den had a lovely, low table with a giant bowl of buttons in the center. I’m a toucher  so I welcomed  her invitation to dip my hands into that delicious assortment of textures, shapes and colors. Her grandparents had owned one of  the historic American button manufacturing companies, so the bowl of generations-old buttons was a symbole for her family.

Several years later, my mother was culling through her three-legged sewing notions bucket and I spied a big plastic box of old buttons. “Where did those come from?” I exclaimed, as the memory of the giant button bowl rushed over me.

“I’m not sure why I’ve kept them all these years” she admitted. “Some are from little dresses you girls wore, some were on my old formals or sweaters, and these came off of one of Honey’s coats (her mother) that I loved . . . here are some buttons off of Daddy’s Navy pea coat.” It turned out that there were even buttons of Grandmother Curry’s (my great grandmother), who had given her the vintage wooden cabinet.

I boldly asked if I could have them, and whisked them away before she could change her mind!  As soon as I returned home, I began gathering up the buttons in my sewing kit. I realized that I had quite a collection myself, between extra or lost buttons and a brief season of sewing children’s clothes and a few other ill-conceived projects.

I certainly didn’t have enough buttons to fill a large wooden bowl, but I found a smaller bowl that captured the character of what my mind had been incubating.

My button bowl contains tangible artifacts of the everyday lives of five generations. They were once attached to the clothing that covered those souls who came before me and shaped who I am today.

My young friend, Anna, was one of the first who recognized the wonder of the button bowl. She was barely three, yet carefully picked up each button, and examined it with a magnifying glass, then began sorting them by color or texture or material.

Over a dozen years, I have observed a variety of button rituals, mostly by children, a few curious adults and my grandson who still occasionally holds the spyglass against his magnified eye while asking the origin of a “family button”.

The button bowl has become another everyday ebenezer, a symbole of God’s faithfulness in very ordinary, daily ways. These are the ones I’m most prone to overlook.

[Listen here: http://congregationalsongs.com/downloads/fill-thou-my-life/]

Fill Thou my life, O Lord, my God,
In every part with praise,
That my whole being may proclaim
Thy being and Thy ways.

Not for the lip of praise alone,
Nor e’en the praising heart,
I ask, but for a life made up
Of praise in every part.

Praise in the common things of life,
Its goings out and in,
Praise in each duty and each deed,
However small and mean.

Fill every part of me with praise;
Let all my being speak
Of Thee and of Thy love, O Lord,
Poor though I be, and weak.

So shalt Thou, Lord, from me, e’en me
Receive the glory due,
And so shall I begin on earth
The song forever new.

So shall no part of day or night
From sacredness be free:
But all my life, in every step,
Be fellowship with Thee.

Words by Horatius Bonar (1866). Music by Jeff Bourque. Copyright 2004 Universal Music/Cumberland Belle Music.