Our church held its annual fall auction this past Sunday, an event organized and hosted by our women’s group nearly every year for nearly five decades.

The event always draws a big crowd, including those outsiders who come to steal our baked goods.

Coffee and bars are laid out on the tables in abundance. Good Lutheran church basement coffee, mind you. And even better church lady dessert bars. You know, seven layers, spiced with frosting, brownies with mini-M&Ms on top. All the classics.

The tables were filled with items made with care and ready to be auctioned.

Baked goods, including canned salsa, homemade donuts, cinnamon-coated nuts, pies, pickled beets and beans, and the Holy Grail … handmade lefse. Quilts so fine that they looked like art, not bed covers. Hand-sewn baby wash clothes, blankets and crib sheets crafted with more love than anything you’ll ever find in a store. Hats, mittens, baby clothes, scarves, Christmas decorations, all patiently created by someone in the congregation.

This is what we’ve come to expect as the usual fare at the fall auction. And it’s the reason so many from so many miles away come to fill up our fellowship hall on auction day.

Selfishly, I bagged a good number of those canned items, including the only two jars of pickled beets on the market. I shouldn’t tell anyone this ahead of next year’s auction, but I’m certain I would have bankrupted Shelley and I to ensure we came home with those beets! … And they have not since disappointed.

Dike was the man at the front of the room again, helming our auction the last handful of years. He serves as chief entertainer and master of ceremonies and keeps the auction rolling along at a good pace so we can actually make it through the sale of all those donated items.

He’s always full of good cheer, a quick joke and isn’t afraid of cajoling attendees into bidding on something they never had a notion of bidding on. … Just ask the pastor.

Dike, too, is why the auction is always seen as an annual church highlight. His familiar pitter patter, and his comfort with his neighbors, allows him the opportunity to produce laughs in the most friendly of ways. … And nearly all of it is appropriate for the all-age crowd.

Folks eat it up.

So did I on Sunday. The whole event.

You see, after last week’s rancorous headlines, this pastor’s soul needed that familiarity with something so good, so kind, something so long lasting, so inclusive and so loving. It reminded me that all is not lost. There is good in the world. And while it seems our country is unmoored, there are still things that pull us together.

Just like a fall church auction on a beautiful, sunlit sunday afternoon in the autumn. Amen.

— Devlyn Brooks is the interim CEO of Churches United in Moorhead, Minn., and an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America serving Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. He blogs about faith at findingfaithin.com, and can be reached at devlynbrooks@gmail.com.