Anglican Prayer Beads  Prayer Beads  Anglican Rosary Rosaries  Natural Soap  Handmade Soap

I have a curious and socially debilitating condition that I have decided to call, "Calendar Dyslexia." For reasons I do not understand, I have great difficulty in organizing and understanding weeks and months. I can generally tell you what year it is. I realize, of course, that knowing the year is no big accomplishment. I only mention it because I want to claim some level of competency in these matters. But when it comes to weeks and months, I live in a state of constant confusion.

Once or twice a year I suddenly forget what month it is. I’ll say to myself, “Is it Spring and we’re moving toward Summer, or is it Fall and we’re moving toward Christmas?”  For a few seconds I have no idea what part of the year we are in. It’s a very disorienting feeling, let me tell you.

I don't understand why calendars are so difficult for me. I’m a reasonably intelligent man. I have no trouble with the concept of days, weeks, months, and years. If I look at a calendar I know exactly what I am seeing. Somehow I can say the date or the month, but not “feel” the date or the month, if that makes any sense. I can know that it is December 23^rd, but not make the connection that Christmas is in two days. It’s as if connections between dates and events – connections other people seem to have no trouble with – are not made in my mind.

My mind does make connections; they're just, well, odd connections. Right now I'm working on a piece for Christian Century called, "Theology, Xeno, and the Hundred Meter Dash." The connection between these three things came very easily to my mind. These are the sort of connections that sometimes come out in my writing. These are also the sort of connections they say schizophrenics often make.

Now here’s something funny. I am currently in charge of our church calendar.

I'll wait for a minute until you stop laughing.

Obviously calendars and organization are not a high priority at our church. Either that or everyone enjoys watching the hilarity that inevitable comes when I try to manage things.

Here’s a couple of examples:

In February - of this year I think - Ben Chappell was stepping down after serving our church as an elder for 13 years. I love Ben dearly and wanted to recognize his service. So I created a very nice certificate, which I presented to him at the end of worship one Sunday. I wanted this certificate to be just right, so I went over it very carefully. I read every word about ten times.

Amy Main read the certificate out loud during the presentation because I was afraid I was going to start crying. She had to stop reading and giggle because it said, “The 5^th Sunday of February,” instead of “February 5^th.”

Two things:

First, there can be five Sundays in February on very rare occasions. It has to be a leap year, and the first day of February must be Sunday. It’s rare, but not impossible.

Second, even if I had written the date correctly, I would have been wrong since it was actually February 12^th.

I offered to redo the certificate for Ben, but he said, “No way, I love it like this. It’s perfect coming from you.”

I thought that was nice of him. My friend Cynthia says this about my calendar problems: “Most of the time it’s cute. On rare occasions we want to slap you around a bit, but it’s okay.”

This last weekend I committed one of my more serious calendar errors. Thank goodness the wedding party was made up of very kind and forgiving people.

You’re dying to know what happened now, right?

Some months ago a man called to reserve our church for a wedding on the Saturday before Easter. No problem. We don’t have a lot of weddings at our church, and the day was free. I wasn’t asked to do the wedding or participate in any way. The bride’s father is a chaplain in the navy and would be performing the ceremony.

Now on Good Friday, we have a rather somber service in the evening. The church is stripped of all things that bear any sign of gaiety or rejoicing. The cross above the fireplace mantel is draped in black. During the service we light candles and read the passion story, the story of the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus.

Last Thursday – the day before Good Friday – I was at the church making preparations for our Good Friday service the very next day. I was going over my notes and preparing the manuscript from which I would read the story. The bride’s father dropped by to pick up a key. I stopped what I was doing to talk with him. I was friendly and accommodating. I answered his questions with a smile.

“Of course you may come Friday afternoon to decorate the church with pretty white lace, Easter lilies, and all manner of beautiful wedding regalia in preparation for your wedding Saturday. Of course. Make yourselves at home."

Of course, because we are a kind and gentle little church. We love to be helpful. We'll give you a key to our building and let you have the run of the place.

“No problem!" I said with a smile. "Friday afternoon and evening, the church is all yours. You’ll have to excuse me now, I need to get back to work on my Good Friday stuff.”

They left and I cheerfully went back to getting ready for Good Friday. I was so happy. I like being the pastor of a nice little church.

The point is, my weird brain NEVER MADE THE CONNECTION. I like the idea of a Good Friday service and was very engrossed in preparing for it. I also like the idea of letting these good people decorate the church the Friday before their wedding. I like these ideas so much that my brain treats them as wholly separate subjects, each possessing goodness and neither encroaching on the other. The fact that these completely incompatible events were now scheduled for the same time and place didn't seem to register in my brain. It was not important enough to draw my attention.

On Friday, Michael Main was mowing the grass at the church when the wedding party arrived, opened the door with a key, and began decorating. Michael immediately saw the conflict and told them there must be some mistake.

"You can't decorate the church, because we strip it bare for the Good Friday service this evening."

The family was confused, of course. After all, the pastor himself gave the okay. Now a guy pushing a lawnmower was saying that the pastor was wrong. They were understandably doubtful and bewildered. This was something of a crisis for them, as you can imagine.

Michael called me. I panicked and felt like an idiot. I drove out to the church and apologized all over myself. Luckily the family was very nice, and they didn’t mind decorating early Saturday morning instead. So it wasn’t absolutely terrible or anything.

Michael told the story to a couple of our friends at church, so by Sunday word had gotten around. Just another goofy Gordon story for the Covenant archives. Just another day in the life of a church that, for some reason, still lets me be in charge of the calendar.

Just between you and me, I think they’re enjoying this.

rlp

The interesting and weird stuff

So okay, I went to New York, and I met some people, and I got to preach in a fancy church, and it was all very affirming and nice. Maybe I'll get to do something like that again.

But now for the interesting stuff. The little odd things that happen when you go to strange, new places.

Airport Books

Here is a list of some of the best book titles from the airport store. All of the religious, self-help variety. Yes, these are real.

• Fasting Made Easy (Really? Somehow easy doesn't seem to fit with the whole fasting thing)
• One Minute Pocket Bible (For people on the go)
• The Prayer that Changes Everything: The Hidden Power of Praising God. (This is sort of a wildcard prayer, I guess)
• One Minute Prayers (For your ADD friends)
• You're Late Again Lord: The Impatient Woman's Guide To God's Timing
• Be A People Person (SCARY Cover)
• The Diet Code: Revolutionary Weight Loss Secrets From Da Vinci and the Golden Ratio
• Real Life Real Love: A Marriage Guide  (Written by a Catholic Priest???)

People Person or Used Car Salesman?
You Make The Call

If one of these books was written by your brother or is your favorite book ever, I apologize ahead of time to save you the trouble of emailing me. You're right. The book you love is awesome, and I'm obviously out of line and WAY out of touch.

Bill & Sabre

Last Sunday (April 2nd), two men visited our church. I chatted with them before the service and found that they read Real Live Preacher and were in town, so they stopped by. This happens every other month or so. Someone wanders into the church because of Real Live Preacher. Jeanene was doing chapel services at her hospital, so she wasn't in church to meet them. One of the men was from Syracuse, New York.

I said, "Hey, what a coincidence. My wife and I are flying to Syracuse this coming Thursday."

He said, "Wow. Why don't you and your wife stay with us that night?"

"Okay!" I said, enthusiastically and without thinking much about it. And without thinking about the fact that I really don't like staying with strangers. And without considering how I was going to tell Jeanene that we were now spending the night at someone's house in Syracuse, someone we do not know and she has never met.

The Jeanene conversation was....interesting. Here's a summary.

"Um, hey about Thursday night in Syracuse. I got us a place to stay."

"Great, where?"

"With these people. This guy named Bill and his wife, Sabre."

"Who are these people?"

"Some folks who visited Covenant today. They seemed nice and all."

"What do you know about them?"

"Well, you know, they seemed like nice people, and they....nothing really. I don't know anything about them."

By some miracle she agreed, and it turned out that Bill and Sabre are indeed incredibly fun and generous people, the sort of people who invite strangers into their home. So now we have friends in Syracuse. Feel free to stop by their house if you ever pass through there. Tell them I said hello.

You Know You're a Redneck If...

This was the first time I've ever been to New York. We were in the Finger Lakes region. Very agricultural. VERY beautiful. I pulled into a gas station and saw this out front.

Click for larger image

The buttons: Premium Night Crawlers,
Salted Minnows, Trout Worms,
Meal Worms, and Leeches.

How does the joke go? You know you're in redneck country if you can buy live bait from coke machines outside the 7-11. This is the sort of thing I would expect to see in Texas, but never have. This guy in a beat-up car saw me taking a picture of the machine. He asked what I was doing. I said, "Y'all must REALLY like fishing."

He nodded enthusiastically and said, "Yep."

Fancy Hotels vs. Not-So-Fancy Hotels

Now Cornell University has a VERY nice hotel called the Statler. It's right on campus, and the University paid for one night there. But I was spending three nights in Ithaca. The Statler is $180 a night, which is about $120 more than I'm accustomed to paying. So I booked a room at the Econo Lodge. I didn't ask the rate because, well, it's the ECONO Lodge. How expensive could it be? I went to the desk the next morning to pay and found out the room was $150 a night.

What?

Yeah, there was no mistake. Trust me, I asked. Twice. That was the price. So we went back to the Statler and stayed there the last night. I usually won't spend a lot of money on luxury items, but I was willing to pay $30 to upgrade from the Econo Lodge in the Big Lots parking lot on the edge of town to the Statler, right on campus, where they turn down your sheets at night, and everyone in the place somehow knows your name and says, "How are you, Mr. Atkinson?"

Yeah, right!

Almost A Disaster

Did I tell you that I almost MISSED THE WORSHIP SERVICE ALTOGETHER! No? Okay, you'll love this. First, let me remind you that Cornell flew me to New York, put me up in a very nice hotel, AND paid me a stipend for preaching last Sunday. So if I had not shown up for the service....I'm just saying it would have been a little awkward.

Sunday morning I was to meet the University Chaplain in the hotel lobby at 10:30. I went downstairs to one of the business kiosks about 8:30 to tinker around with my introduction. I was relaxed and just messing around, really. My watchband broke so I was looking at my computer clock, which was still set for Central Standard Time. I didn't bring my phone with me, and Jeanene had NO idea where I was.

At 9:25 (or so I thought) I heard someone outside the kiosk say, "Oh, he's still in there." I realized that I had been in there for a long time, and I really didn't have anything left to do, so I decided to be nice and vacate the kiosk for someone else. I went upstairs and found Jeanene in something of a panic.

"You're supposed to be downstairs in like five minutes! Where have you been?"

So basically, if some woman hadn't wanted the computer kiosk, I might have missed the service. What an embarrassing disaster that would have been. On the other hand, it would have made a GREAT story for the blog, right?

When it comes to clocks and calendars, I'm definitely more challenged than most. Sadly, I am no stranger to this sort of thing.

And Now For Something Nice

I was touched and amazed to find that some people from that part of the state drove to Ithaca to attend the service. I met some of them afterwards. It's the custom of Sage Chapel for the minister to stand by the door and shake hands with people as they leave. A young couple came up. I'm sorry, but I don't remember their names. I met all of these people in about 15 minutes.

He and his wife are starting a church. He intends to be "bi-vocational," as I am. That means having other job(s) so that the church doesn't have to support you completely. We talked. I gave him the manuscript of my sermon. He cried and I did a little too. And we hugged.

Just one of those nice moments. I hope they read this and email me so that I can stay in touch.

rlp

Hey, I thought I'd check in and mention a couple of things. The Christian Century accepted my last essay submission, and they are going to use it in both the magazine and on the website. That's the first time that has happened, which is good news for me. But it does mean that it may be a couple of weeks before it will be online. So that was what I was going to post today or tomorrow. Instead you're getting updates, music, and photos.

My friend Ben King has given me some interesting music for the intros of my growing audio file collection. The latest is a rough cut from a new CD by "Ben and the Sidewalk Saints." This is pretty interesting stuff. It's old time gospel music with a serious attitude. They re-create the music played in the South and Southwest by sidewalk preachers and the "church bands" that used to play at brush arbor meetings and country suppers. I love it, and I bet you will too. Ben gave me this early mix, but he has a real Salvation Army band coming to play some parts that will be in the final mix.

If you like it, you can email Ben at talktaco@stic.net, and they will notify you when the CD is available.

And finally, here are some photos I've snapped recently with the camera on my mobile phone. The quality isn't much, but the subject matter is rather interesting. Click any image for a larger view.

 

 

rlp

Flyer from the window of the public
library in Schertz, Texas.
Click to view larger image.

An open letter to the good people of the Schertz Public Library:

Hi there,

I know your town is mostly white people and all, but I think that's all the more reason you should make a special effort to get this sort of thing right.

There's Martin Luther King Jr., noted civil rights leader, advocate of civil disobedience by non-violent resistance, and author of famous speeches and sermons. His skin was dark. He wore suits and ties. He was killed in Memphis Tennessee in 1968. He's the one you see in numerous photographs and film clips.

And there's Martin Luther, the 16th century reformer and the inspiration behind Lutheranism, whose 95 theses tacked to the door of the church in Wittenberg sparked the Protestant Reformation. His skin was light in color, much like your own. He wore robes. No pictures or video available.

There now, that wasn't so hard.

See you next January!

rlp

Note: I know what you're thinking. Someone got a little careless with clipart. Maybe, but you should know that this sign was on the front door of the library for a full week before January 16th. Apparently no one noticed the problem in all that time.

Me? Nothin much. Let’s see…Oh, Lillian asked me what a tit was last week. We were driving along and she said, “Dad, what’s a tit?” Her two sisters snorted and then smothered their laughs in their palms. She’s the youngest, and sometimes she says things that make us all laugh. The week before there was a maxi pad in its little flat package sitting on the kitchen table. Don’t ask. There are days when we’re doing good if everyone is alive and home in time for bed. We don’t have time to worry about what’s on the table.

So Lillian pipes up and says, “What’s that? Astronaut food?”

Shelby clapped her hand over her mouth and ran out of the room. I could hear her muffled guffaws through the wall even though I think she was smothering her laugh in a pillow.

Lillian hates it when the big girls laugh at something she says, so I tried to be very serious about the tit question.

“Well, okay...um, tit is another word for a woman’s breast. It’s kind of a slang term.”

“Gross!” she said and turned her face and her little glasses to the window.

What else...

Okay, yesterday at the grocery store some woman was staring at my food and stuff while it was sitting on the little conveyor belt at the register. Really giving it the once over, you know? I was a little irritated because I tend to be self-conscious about what I buy at the grocery store. It feels like my Rorschach test results are being displayed on the store security monitors.

I don’t know what she was so interested in. It was just regular stuff. A couple of cans of pinto beans, some olives stuffed with bleu cheese, peppermint ice cream, a box of astronaut food with wings, a baguette, some salami, and a "Joe vs. The Volcano" DVD that was on special for five bucks.

Why is it that every time I go to the grocery store I feel like I’m 14 years old? It seems like all the other grownups are buying real food and important things like shampoo and scotch tape.

Maybe one more thing…

Oh yeah, Tim (whom I once wrote about and called Tom) gave me the royal screw job last week. He and his three kids joined our church after all that stuff that happened to him. We love him; he’s great; his kids are great; his daughters and my daughters are buddies; sleepovers; drop in anytime for a Cowboys game; make fun of each other; all that.

This fall he’s been teaching a class on Mark's gospel on Sunday mornings. He takes one chapter a week and hits the high points. I fill in for him when he’s gone. So he says, “Hey, I’m not going to be there on Sunday. Can you take my class?”

“Sure,” I say. “What chapter are you on?”

He gets this funny smile on his face and says, “Thirteen.”

I’m not too good at remembering chapters and verses. I don’t really think of the books of the bible as chapters and verses. I think of them as stories or letters or whatever. I’ll say things like, “You know, it’s in Acts right before all that stuff with Paul and Barnabus."

Tim has a fantastic memory, so I'm pretty sure he knew exactly what was in chapter thirteen.

I pulled out my New Testament to take a look at what we’d be talking about. Rather grim is Mark 13, as it turns out. Here’s a quick outline:

• The Destruction of the Temple predicted.
• Hideous persecution is just around the corner.
• The desolating sacrilege is on its way. You might want to get ready for that.
• The sun will die; the moon will go out; the stars will fall from the sky.
• Keep your eye on the fig tree in the meantime. You know, to give you something to do while you’re waiting.
• And no, Jesus doesn’t know when any of this is going to take place, so you really can’t make emergency plans.

Nice.

Thanks Tim or Tom or whatever your name is. I’m convinced you planned your entire Fall calendar around avoiding Mark 13 this week.

...

So that's what's going on with me. You?

rlp

I have two friends with whom I meet once a month at Double Dave's, a pizza and beer place with numerous imported and otherwise hoity-toity beers on tap. Both of these guys go to church with me. John is an elder, and Tim is an ex-preacher who now attends Covenant and keeps me honest with puzzled expressions from the back row while I preach. He's also our local St. Francis expert and resident Baptist mystic. Tim began attending our church following an unfortunate incident at his own church. I wrote about him once but called him Tom instead of Tim because I was trying to be anonymous back then.

The three of us meet together in a manner similar to C.S. Lewis' Oxford friends, who called themselves "The Inklings." We drink beer as they did, but our conversations are nowhere near as sophisticated. Tim and I mostly entertain John with funny church stories like the time at Tim's church when he looked out the window and saw a boy from the youth group beating the son of a visiting family with a hockey stick.

I'm pretty sure that family never came back.

Double Dave's has occasional beer tasting events, during which the manager waxes eloquent on the history and style of a variety of beers no one has ever heard of except John. Tim and John take their beer very seriously. I sip a little but mostly have a go at the pizza. You'll be glad to know that I'm also the designated driver. The whole thing works out very nicely, to my way of thinking.

Last Friday John had a birthday party at Double Dave's. At one point I noticed John's wife taking a picture of us, so I grabbed an empty bottle of John's expensive European snobby beer and acted like I was drunk, though I was only drinking Diet Coke, as usual.

I don't know why. What would YOU have done?

Later, when John and Lexie discovered that they had a photo of their pastor looking drunk in a public place, they did exactly what you'd expect good friends and sensitive parishioners would do in a situation like that.

They posted it on the Internet of course.

Nice.

I already knew there was no other Baptist church in the country that would have me. Now I'm thinking that if I ever hope to serve another church, I'll have to go back to seminary and hope the "whiskey-palians" will take me.

rlp

Note: If you don't know anything about church history and the reformer, Martin Luther, you should read "A Short History of Martin Luther" by my 16-year-old daughter before you read this essay. Come to think of it, you should read the thing by my daughter even if you have a PhD in church history. Trust me!

---

Jung felt that daydreams, like night dreams, contain great personal significance for us. Your subconscious mind speaks to you both at night and during the day. The exact nature of the subconscious and the meaning of these dreams remain a mystery. But that’s where the fun comes in.

I have a recurring daydream that comes to me quite often. I do not understand the significance of it, and if you think you do, I would prefer you keep your thoughts to yourself. I don’t really want to know.

This daydream comes mostly when I should be working on a sermon or when I’m in an elevator. In the dream I am showing the 16th century reformer, Martin Luther, the modern world. How he arrived in our century is not a part of my daydream. Nor is there any explanation for why he speaks modern English.

Martin Luther is absolutely astounded by Diet Coke, elevators, and canned soup. And he says that our world smells funny.

I wince as I look at his monk’s robe, which certainly has not been washed in this or perhaps any other century. “You’re a bit ripe yourself, Marty. But what’s an odor or two among brothers in Christ, eh?”

“Well put,” he says with a polite nod.

He is startled by the fizzy pop when I open an ice cold Diet Coke. He lifts the can to his ancient lips, and his eyes open wide. Then he bends forward at the waist, spraying foamy suds all over the floor.

“What in the unholy name of Zwingli is this? It burns like a brew straight from the devil’s arse!”

“Oh, sorry. That’s called carbonation. They have this way of putting bubbles in some of the things we drink. I don’t know why we like it, but we do. I guess it’s a bit of a shock if you’re not used to it.”

He squints at the can, sounding out the letters. “'Diet of Coke.' I am not familiar with this particular council. Is there to be a disputation? Will I be asked to defend myself? You understand I’m a bit nervous after the incident at Worms.”

“Oh yeah, the Diet of Worms. That’s that council meeting where you were excommunicated, right?”

His eyes broke away from mine, and he looked around the room, then back at me. He nodded hesitantly.

“Don’t worry man, Diet Coke is a whole other thing.”

He looked relieved. Then I had a great idea.

“Hey man, SAY it!”

“Say what?”

“You knoooow” I say, dragging it out enticingly.

“Oh very well. I suppose you'll pester me until I do.”

Martin Luther clears his throat and lifts an arm, affecting the posture of an old fashioned orator.

“Here I stand. I can do no other!”

“YES!” I shout, pumping my fist like Tiger Woods does when he sinks a long putt. “Larry is not going to freakin believe this.”

“Larry?”

“Oh yeah, he’s a friend of mine, a pastor up in Dallas…uh, this city north of here.”

“He’s not a Calvinist, is he? Or an Anabaptist? If he is, by God I shall lay my hands on a stout quarterstaff and beat his head until the mule shite that fills it pours out of his ears.”

“Whoa Marty, calm down. Take it easy. He’s a Baptist, and that’s a group that didn’t get started until you were pretty much already dead. And Baptists…well, you don’t wanna know. Anyway, we don’t really do head pounding as such anymore. Things have calmed down a lot since your time.”

To get his mind off quarterstaffs and heresy, I take him on his first elevator ride. He is beside himself with glee and pushes all the buttons. Every time the door opens he thinks we are in a different place and laughs like a madman. A woman in a business suit enters on the 8th floor, frowns when she sees that all the buttons have been pushed, then pushes the lobby button. She glances at Martin Luther, who is trying hard to suppress his giggles, and pushes the lobby button two more times. Then she puts a handkerchief to her nose and gets off on the 7th floor.

For lunch I pull out two cans of Campbell’s Beef and Vegetable soup. I toss one to him, enjoying his puzzled look.

“It’s soup, Martin. Watch.”

I put a can opener along the top and squeeze the handle until it locks. Then I twist it and the can rotates until the top pops off. Martin Luther leans over and watches everything. I pour the soup into a couple of bowls and pop them into a microwave. He puts his forefinger against the glass and fiddles with the buttons a bit while the soup is heating. He is startled by the “ding,” and then we have hot soup together.

“It’s a bit salty,” says he, “but extraordinary, considering it came from those strange cylinders. What did you call them again.”

“Cans.”

“And you may simply open one of these CANS whenever you’re hungry?”

“Yep.”

“Remarkable.”

After the soup we both get quiet and things are a little uncomfortable. Martin Luther picks at his robe, while I make two or three attempts at small talk. After the way he laughed on the elevator, I’m a little worried about showing him anything else.

“So…how much longer will you be here?”

“Not much longer. Just a few more minutes and I have to go back.”

“Oh,” I say, sadly. “Okay, how about this? We each get to ask the other two questions about life in his time. I go first.”

Martin Luther nods in agreement.

This is the opportunity of a lifetime, and I don’t want to blow it. But suddenly I can’t think of anything to say. And time is running out. I open my mouth and say the first thing that comes to mind.

“What was the longest time you ever went without brushing your teeth?”

“Brushing my teeth? What does that mean?”

“Never mind, that pretty much tells me more than I need to know. Okay, how about this: Why were people in your time so uptight about theology? You killed each other, for God’s sake. I mean literally, FOR THE SAKE OF GOD, you tortured and killed each other. Why?”

Martin Luther answers quickly and with a straight face. “That’s easy. We really believed.”

“Whaddya mean? In God? WE believe in God.”

He smiles. “No you don’t. Not really. You have so many options. There are so many different things that people in your time can believe. Your belief is a whispy, smoky, light-weighted sort of thing. I can see right through it. People in your world really don’t know WHAT they believe. For us, God is as real as rocks and wind and rain and summertime. And because we believe, we are passionate. Too passionate at times, I will admit. I see things much clearer now.”

“How do you know that much about us? All you’ve seen are Diet Cokes, elevators, and canned soup. I mean, we have a whole lot more than that.”

Martin Luther smiles. “I’ve seen enough. And now it’s my turn. I have only one question for you.”

“Shoot,” I say.

He looks puzzled.

“Oh, uh, go ahead and ask.”

“Our lives are filled with much hardship. Winters are hard; Summers too. Only wealthy people may hear music, and most people cannot read. Just securing food and water takes hours out of our days. In my entire lifetime, I only managed to write a set of commentaries and an assortment of other works and treatises. With your many labor saving devices, your elevators and your canned soup, I imagine that people can accomplish so much more with their lives. I imagine your days are filled with prayer and creation and loveliness. It is a marvelous time in which you live, is it not? Are people fully educated and busily engaged with writing and art and music and philosophy and theology?”

I can’t think of a way to answer him, and Martin Luther is fading away. I have to speak quickly.

“No, most of us produce very little. We tend to consume a lot, though. We spend most of our time consuming and using things. And we work an awful lot so that we can pay for all the things we want to consume. A lot of us consume more than we can pay for, so we buy on credit. And then of course, we have work doubly hard to pay our creditors. That’s just the way it is.”

Martin Luther looks puzzled, and just before he fades away he says, “I don’t understand what you mean.”

He’s gone before I can reply, but I speak anyway.

“Yeah, we don’t really understand it either, Martin.”

rlp

A few days ago I told you the story of a mysterious little menagerie of toy animals that appeared and then disappeared from a large rock by the sidewalk that leads to the front door of our church. I speculated that someone from a wedding party might have removed them.

The Original Menagerie that Disappeared 

A few days later I was picking up around the church when I found something interesting in the nursery.

At first glance I thought I had found my lost collection of toy animals. Upon closer inspection, I saw that the turtle and the giraffe and the rabbit were missing. The hippopotamus was blue instead of purple, and a baby elephant had been added to the collection.

I wondered what else I might find if I wandered around the church. I found the rabbit under a table in Judy's Sunday School room.

Despite my best efforts, the turtle, the giraffe, and the original hippo were nowhere to be found. I did, however, find a lion in the corner of the nursery.

So I reconstructed the collection as best I could. It wasn't exactly the same, but certainly in the same spirit as the original.

My Reconstruction

Yesterday I found that some mysterious person has added a turtle and two birds eating from a bushel of apples to our little shrine.

Our New Menagerie

I wonder where this is going. Will it become famous? Will animals mysteriously appear and disappear from time to time? Will people make pilgrimages to see this shrine, like they do to see the image of Jesus on a tortilla?

Occasionally someone will ask me what ministers do all day when they're not preaching or visiting someone in a hospital. I'm never quite sure how to answer that question. Next time I think I'll say that we are here to make sure that sacred places are cared for and important things are not lost in the fast-paced shuffle of everyday life.

rlp

"Strange Days Have Found Us"
                          ...The Doors

I like days that are unusual and strange. I like days that are out of the ordinary. I like it when some coincidence drops into my life, when the stars align, and when I see things in new ways. I am making no statements about the origin or meaning of such days. I only say that we should receive them and that it's a good thing to keep your eyes open.

Tuesday was one of those days for me.

I met a friend at Starbucks at 8:45 am. While we were sitting there, a woman in the line of cars at the drive-through window fell asleep while waiting for her coffee. People inside started laughing and pointing as the cars in front of her pulled ahead while she sat snoozing in her place. Finally, someone behind her got out of his car and tapped on her window, startling her awake.

“Get that woman some coffee!” said a man sipping from his cup and watching everything through the window.

For some reason I tore a small piece of paper out of my notebook and wrote “A woman fell asleep at Starbucks” on it.

A few hours later I got a call from the nurse at our middle school. Shelby was having some trouble with one of her last baby teeth. It was loose but not letting go, and had shifted so that she couldn't chew or even close her mouth easily. I had to make an emergency appointment with our dentist, whose office is within a few hundred yards of our church.

It was a gorgeous and sunny day, about 70 degrees with a perfectly blue sky and not a cloud in sight. We stopped by the church on the way to the dentist and were shocked to find a thick layer of hail all over the church property. I got out of my car and thrust my hand into one of the hail drifts. My whole hand disappeared into little balls of ice ranging in size from specks to grape-sized chunks. I have seen plenty of hail in my life, but never so much that it was piled six inches deep.

Apparently, the storm that morning was so localized that people living only a few miles away had no rain or hail at all. By the time we got to the church, the sky was clear and only evidence of this storm was a strange covering of ice balls and tree limbs stripped bare around the church.

Later, I was getting out of my car when I felt or maybe heard a kind of crunchy, cartilage sound in my ribcage. It didn't hurt much at that moment, but as the day progressed, so did the pain until by evening I could hardly move without gasping in pain. Even breathing hurt. “Can I have broken a rib just getting out of my car?” I wondered. The pain subsided over the next couple of days, but on Tuesday I could hardly move.

At 8:30 that evening I went to our local Barnes and Noble to meet Chris and Jenny, the young adults who run our youth program at church. Chris is the father of Anna, in case you are interested. Jenny is his sister. I've known them both for years. We were meeting to talk about our youth program. Chris' wife Ellen is a deacon at our church and was there as well.

I told them about my ribs, demonstrating by turning in my seat and groaning when the pain hit. They responded with exactly the level of sympathy you expect from good friends. I really don't know what the demonstration did for me, but I felt compelled to tell the story of my ribs, and they were polite enough to hear it. Then we moved on to other matters. We took care of our church business quickly and were simply enjoying good company when the conversation turned to handwriting for some reason that I cannot remember.

I told them that I print everything except when I sign my name and that I hadn't written in cursive since I was a boy. Because of this, my handwriting still looks awkward, like a child's.

“Write something,” Ellen said with a smile on her face. You should know Ellen. She definitely would want to see my handwriting after I said something like that.

“What should I write?” I asked while getting a piece of paper.

She paused and looked thoughtful, then said, "I like bacon."

I wrote it and everyone laughed at my childish handwriting, which really does look like something a 6th grade boy would produce.

Then everyone showed their own handwriting style, writing “I like bacon” in turns on the paper.

After we left I realized that we may have left the paper on the table. I wonder what the people who sat there next thought about it. Maybe that scrap of paper will contribute something to their day. Maybe it will become part of a story that they are telling to their friends.

This is what a day can be. This is how things happen in the world.

rlp

This goes out to all those who practice our ancient craft. So it's the second Sunday in Lent, right? You say you're doing the Nicodemus story, and you're looking for a good sermon title?

I got your sermon title.

I wish I had thought of this title myself, but I didn't. So I'll have to tell the story and give credit where credit is due.

A few years ago I was in a lectionary study group with some ministers here in town. Mostly Presbyterians. There was one other Baptist. He has since left town and is now the pastor of this church. Among the Presbyterians were the pastor of this church and this church. We met every week to talk about things and share sermon ideas.

It was the second Sunday in Lent, and Lib says, "If you're doing Nicodemus this week, I've got the perfect sermon title.”

Everyone turns to look at her. Now me, I don't worry that much about sermon titles as a general rule. If the sermon is interesting, challenging, and well delivered, who cares about the title? And if it is none of those things, a good title isn't going to help. But yeah, a nice title is kind of cool. She had my attention.

She looks at us like she's about to tell the world's greatest joke. “You ready?” she asks. We all nod. "Yeah, yeah, we're ready."

“Nick at Night.”

Gasps, moans, laughter, heads nodding with admiration.

Now I would imagine that only practitioners of the esoteric art of preaching will fully understand this, but just hearing that title can open up a whole line of thinking for a preacher. Maybe you hear that title and suddenly the element of darkness and light in that story begins to take hold in your spirit. It could change your whole sermon.

Seriously, that is one EXCELLENT sermon title.

“I'm definitely using it,” I said. “Not this year, but someday. The next time I preach from that story, that will be the title."

It's been a few years, but here we are in year A again, and it's the second Sunday in Lent. The title of my sermon this week is, “Nick at Night.”

Thanks Lib!

rlp

 

ps – want another great one? Next time you're preaching from Luke 10:38-42, how about naming the sermon, “Mary and Martha Stewart.”

Kaching!

Visit the Nick at Nite Website

Well sir, I must admit the first time Amy Main, the beloved wife of Michael Main who is a pretty darn famous blogger now and a deacon at our church, tole me about this kinda "chili" they make up in Ohio, I was stupified and right suspicious.

Ya see, we Texans think we know a little somethin about chili. It oughta be red; it shouldn't have a lotta extra stuff floating around in it; it oughta be hot as the blazin fires of hades; and for the sake of all that's holy and good, keep your dadgum beans on your plate and don't go a-dumpin em in your bowl!

So when Miss Amy started in to tellin me about this here Cincinatti Chili, as she called it, I couldn't hardly believe what I was hearin. She said it ain't hot at all, nary a jalapeno in sight. Instead they fill it with nutmeg and all kindsa other spices and even beans. Now she was as cute as a baby bunny in a pea patch when she was telling me about it, but I couldn't keep from laughing at the thought of nutmeg floatin in a steamin bowl of Texas red.

Then when she tole me they serve it with dainty little half-sized weenies on the side and that they pour it over spaghetti, my mouth dropped open and my eyes started blinkin real fast. And when she further tole me they top it off with a double handful of somethin called "oyster crackers" scattered all over the top of it, I said, "Shush now!" and tried to shoo her out the door with my hat.

Folks, this Texas boy is trying his best to keep an open mind about Yankees, but you shore are taxin my patience.

But Miss Amy, well she generally lets her cookin speak for itself, so she just plopped a big ole plate of this "Skyline Chili" down in front of me and walked away. As Sam Houston is my witness, I tried to ignore it. I tried to keep my heart and my mind on the Dallas Cowboys playing there on the TV, but my eyes kept drifting back to that plate. Now my momma taught me to always respect a woman's cookin enough to give it a try, and I thought I owed it to Amy, who is after all a good friend even if she is from Ohio. And she was lettin me watch The Dallas Cowboys at her house; that's gotta count for somethin. So I cringed and stuck a spoonful in my mouth.

Mercy! Sweet horny toads and lightnin Jack, that there was the most DEE-licious mess a goodness this boy has put in his mouth in a long time. Help me sweet Jesus, I actually thought about making a trip to Ohio, wherever that is, just to find the place that invented this odd concoction of Yankee flavorings.

We Texans can be ornery sons-a-bitches - I got to own up to that. But this Texan knows when he's been licked. Now what's that thing the young people are always sayin? Oh yeah...

Skyline Chili ROCKS!

rlp