Questing Parson

A Little Sermon Humor

“So,” she said, as we sat on the sofa in her living room and as she grew bored with my selection of the program playing on the television, “I guess you'll be preaching tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow is Sunday, so I'll be preaching.”

“What are you preaching about?”

“I going to be preaching about the Apostle Paul. While he was in jail praying suddenly the doors of the jail flew open.”

“What are you going to say about that?”

“I'm going to be preaching about all the doors we open and close in our lives.”

“I don't think I understand that.”

“Okay, you come home from school or from shopping or from playing with your friends and you open the door to your house so you can come into a place where you are loved and where people take care of you. You go to school and you open the door to the school so you can enter a place where you can learn and prepare yourself to be an adult. Someday, you'll open a door to your office where you will earn money to be able to provide things for your family. And someday you'll open a door to the hospital where you'll give birth to your baby and my great-grandchild. But, here's the thing, you don't have to open those doors. You could close those doors. And if you close the doors you don't get what's on the other side. And sometimes we open doors and go into places where we shouldn't and we get into trouble. And sometimes we close doors that we should open and we don't get all the things God wants us to have.”

“I've got it,” she said. “It's important to open the right doors and to close the wrong doors.”

I looked down at her ten-year-old face amazed. If this child could get the point of the sermon so quickly surely the adults in my congregation would be thrilled. Oh my goodness, I hadn't anticipated what a really great sermon this was going to be.

“That's right,” I said. “That's exactly what I'm preaching. But I need a funny story to tell.”

“Let me think about it,” she said. She reached over and picked up the remote to the TV; pointed the remote at the screen to turn it off. Then she settled back into the cushions, folded her arms over her chest, closed her eyes and obviously went into deep thought. Suddenly she sat up.

“Here's the funny story: Once there was a man on the inside of a castle. And there was a man on the outside of the castle. They wanted to talk to each other. But they couldn't because the castle door was closed and locked. It was really important that they talk so the man inside the castle kept asking himself, 'What can I do so I can get out there and talk to my friend? Do you know what he did?”

“What did he do?”

“He ran around in circles as fast as he could until he got so tired he passed out. - Get it? He passed out.”

Okay, it wasn't a side-splitter, but in her honor I decided to use it. I began my sermon on doors with my granddaughters joke. I discovered my granddaughter's humor is much more developed than my congregation's.

A Gift to the Children on Mother's Day

Here's the annual reminder: Sunday is Mother's Day. Write it down; tie a ribbon around the gear shift of the car; tell one of the ladies at the office to remind you; do whatever it takes to make sure you don't forget: Mother's Day is Sunday.

Mother's Day is a difficult day, even if you remember it in time. It's a difficult day because there's the annual challenge of selecting the right gift. Mother, as you well know, is also a wife. Being a wife, this mother is prone to make light of certain gifts. For instance, don't attempt that cute trick of gathering the kids early on Mother's Day and cooking her breakfast and serving it on a tray while she's still in bed. Were she just a mother in this situation she'd make the appropriate appreciative comments. But, because she's also a wife as well as a mother she will be unable to resist making comments about your culinary skills, and while she may manage to portray an appreciative attitude, the kids will pick up on the fact that she's underwhelmed. You'll be lucky if she doesn't make some comment about your propensity for burning toast.

My suggestion to you is to completely forget about Mother's Day. Go ahead and buy some flowers or a box of candy or any other generic gift you can think of. Give it to her on Mother's Day. But by putting Mother's Day second, you'll be freed to do what's most important to the mother of your children.

When dinner is over a couple of nights between now and then, tell her, in front of the kids, to go take a bubble bath and relax because you'll take care of the dishes. While washing the dishes, insist the kids be quiet and allow their mother to have some private time. Be darn insistent about it, being stern if necessary.

On Saturday, while the family is out in the yard doing the things that need to be done, let the kids see some merriment. Use your imagination, but you might throw some pine straw in her direction, you might tackle her to the ground and roll through the grass, you might even find a magic moment to pause and then kiss her.

Whenever the kids get uppity and speak in a disrespectful manner to their mother jump on them hard. Make sure they know you'll never tolerate anyone talking to their mother that way. Look at her and say you're sorry for their behavior.

You might go as far as to ask her to dance when a particularly special song is playing. Yes, dance right there in the family room in front of the kids.

Now I realize these suggestions do not readily meet the standard idea of a gift for Mother on Mother's Day. But these suggestions will work. Here's why:

Your wife, the mother of your children, has a desire. Her desire is that you impart to your children the qualities that can make them successful in life. And those qualities go far beyond providing a living for the family, they go beyond a quality education, they go beyond teaching manners and respect, they go beyond all the normal standards of behavior for a father.

The greatest manner of honoring you children's mother, is to honor her children. The greatest way you can honor her children is to make sure they know you love their mother.

OMG - I'm Old

We buried Sara last Saturday. Sara had been part of my life since I can remember being part of life. I'd always thought of her as part of the family. She was always in my great-aunt's home. And my great-aunt lived next door to my grandmother where I lived. So Sara, I assumed, was but one of the clan.

Later I was to learn she wasn't actually blood family. She'd come to be part of my life because she was a boarder at my great-aunt's house. The nation was still suffering the consequences of the Great Depression. My aunt and uncle rented out rooms in order to help with the finances. The room rent included the use of the kitchen. As such I often saw Sara in the kitchen, and since that's where family hangs out, she was family to me.

Sara became attracted to my uncle, the brother of my aunt from whom she rented the room. Once she married him, she was family.

Sara outlived them all. She was ninety-three when she died. The last of that generation to go.

It was a good service. My cousin, Sally, an Anglician priest, and I did the service. I sat in the chancel listening to Sally as I waited my turn to speak. And then it hit me. Sara is dead. And with her death, oh my gracious, with her death my cousin Frank, Sally, and I are now the oldest survivors. Could this mean … do you suppose this could mean I'm old?

And then I thought of old Methuselah. That book I'm always reading says he lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years; and then he died. Think about that. The man lived a milleneuim and all they can tell us about him is he died. The fellow must have been a blight upon the environment. Think of all the hot dogs he consumed. Think of all the wine he drank. Think of all the air he polluted. Think of all the trash he produced. And since he lived in the times of multiple wives and there's no record of him having a job, think of all the wives who must have supported him.

It wasn't that way with Sara and the relatives of the family into which she married. They all lived only into their nineties. But they all left their mark upon this old world. Until the day they died they were a joy to be around.

All this got me thinking. I am one of the old ones in our clan now. And I'm continuing to get old at the steady, predictable, and plodding rate of one hour after another, twenty-four hours a day, every day, every year. I can't stop the course of becoming one of the ancient ones.

I've made up my mind to do it right. I'm going to grow older with grace as did those of my family I used to call old. I'm not going to be one of those that folks hate to visit. When I can't climb mountains any more, I'm going to sit and relish all the things near me I now have time to study. When that nurse brings the pill, I'm going to act as though she's dishing out ambrosia.

I'm old enough now to realize that I'm one of the old ones. Praise the Lord that I got here and, maybe, just maybe, I've got a good way to grow.

It's Called Manners

This epistle needs a qualification. That qualification is that the event mentioned in the following paragraphs did not occur here where I live. The event took place many, many miles from my abode. As a consequence no one in my community needs to get in an uproar. I'm not talking about you. Well, maybe ….

Having said the above and before I get to the below, I readily admit I am a fossil. I am the product of an age that does not exist anymore. Thanks to the advances of medical science in the latter part of the twentieth century, there are more and more of us around. We are readily identifiable. For instance, we hold the doors open for ladies. None of us are unaware that ladies are capable of opening doors, but, nevertheless, we hold doors open for ladies because they are ladies. We can also be identified by our propensity to remove our hats when entering a building. I have not the foggiest idea why we do this, but we do it. Gentleman, Mama told me, don't wear hats inside. It's called manners.

Other quaint mannerisms identify us. We always say, “Yes, Ma'am,” and “Yes, Sir.” It's manners. We never put our elbows on the table during a meal. We pull out the chair for women who are joining us at the table. There are certain events at which we think it proper to wear a proper coat, and, occasionally, a tie. Like I said, I'm a fossil. I was raised on manners.

I insist there are certain vestiages of the age in which I was raised society would be well-served to hold onto. That brings me to my recent outing.

It was a talent show for students at a middle school. It was a really big middle school. One grade probably outnumbers the entire population of a local middle school in my home county. That means, if you're going to be fair to all the students, the talent show is going to take hours.

Here begins my remarks on a quality that seems to have been lost somewhere in the abyss that exists between my generation and the one raising my grandchildren. To wit:

When the school provides a designated space for recording videos, one does not stand up when one is on the second row from the front to record, thereby blocking the view of several hundred. It's called manners. Be it known I don't drive eighty-five miles one way to hear two long sets of a hard rock band composed of teachers at a middle school student talent show. It's called manners. When one's own child is a performer in the talent show and one's own child has just completed their talent, has taken their bow, and the next child has just begun their rendition of the latest pop song, one does not begin to exit from the middle of the aisle, exclaiming loudly as one foot after another is stepped upon, “Excuse me. Excuse me.” It's called manners.

During the performance of any middle school child. one, who is chronologically an adult, does not answer one's cell phone and loudly discuss the latest acquisition of the company while my granddaughter is singing. It's called manners.

And finally, when one answers his cell phone while my granddaughter is singing, I do not confront him face-to-face. I talk about him behind his back, as is the case with this blog. It's called manners.

OMG - I'm On Her Mother's Side

Ring. Ring.

“Hello.”

“Hi, it's me.”

“Hello, me.”

“Funny, you always say that when I call. Do you say that to everyone?”

“You're the only one I know named 'Me'.”

“Funny, again. Look I need to talk seriously with you about something important.”

“No problem. What's up.”

“My Mom. I need you to talk to her. She's getting a little, well, I don't want to sound disrespectful, so, let me see. Okay, it's like this. Sometimes she draws these arbitrary lines. I mean nobody knows the line is there until they have crossed it. My sisters and I can be going merrily along with our lives, the day is bright and happy; all is right with the world; and suddenly, I mean OMG, she announces that we stepped over the line. 'What line?' we ask, and for the first time since creation she points to the line....”

“Do you have a moment for me to ask a question?”

“Sure.”

“Does this line have a name?”

“Oh, for sure, this line has a name. I mean it's like the line has a large label with red letters. The name of the line is 'Stupid.'”

“What's the purpose of this 'Stupid' line?”

“Okay, so here's the deal. The line is the boundary standing between my house and my dance studio where I'm supposed to be in forty minutes. You know, don't you, that I don't just take dance lessons there; I am, also, the assistant teacher for the little kids. Well, the teaching pays for the big majority of my dance lessons. Remember how you told me you were so proud of me for being independent? Well, I am independent. I pay my way. I'm a fifteen year old who contributes to my own welfare. I need to go to the dance studio.”

“Okay, I'm going to venture a guess on this. The line between you and the dance studio is a boundary that is prohibiting you from getting to the dance studio in time to take lessons and teach.”

“You got it.”

“And would you have interest in sharing with me why your Mother drew this stupid line that separates you from your home and your livelihood?”

“I skipped school today.”

“You skipped school today?”

“I did it right here in front of her. I mean she knew I was skipping school. It's not like I didn't go to school without her knowledge. And I seem to have heard you used to let your kids, one of whom is my mother, skip school sometimes because they made all A's. I make all A's, too.”

“Why did you skip school?

“I had a science paper due I hadn't finished.”

“You skipped school to work on your science paper. I've got that. What's the problem about the dance studio?”

“She won't let me go. She says that if I skipped school I have to skip all the other activities for the day; that I can't do what she calls 'the fun stuff' when I didn't do the what she calls 'the grunt stuff.'

“Your mother's right.”

“Oh, great! You've crossed over to the dark side. Where can a mature woman get justice around here?”

“Do me a favor.”

“What?”

“Don't you ever tell your mother I took her side.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Wilderness Guides

It goes without saying. One should, if one desires to derive the most, engage the services of a competent guide when exploring unfamiliar wilderness. I desired to derive the most, and, consequently, I took advantage of a local guide service while exploring a portion of the western Connecticut wilderness the week of Thanksgiving. Luck was with me as two brothers, both familiar with the area I was to explore agreed to lead me through the forest.

Now I know some of us Southern folks, when thinking of those New England places, don't imagine forests populated by mighty trees with streams tumbling over rocks downward into quiet deepness through the fertile valleys. It's difficult to realize that just a hop, skip, and a jump, or more precisely a two hour car ride, from New York City there could be a postcard like rural, picturesque setting. Even in our most imagined historical scenes of colonial American farms with the rock walls bordering the pastures, we don't get the feel that today, in this 21^st Century, there remains in that place a wilderness to explore.

The Housatonic River is majestic as it flows south to southwest through western Connecticut. In the wilderness that borders its banks in various places the rock outcroppings are spectacular. The occasional erratic rock, one that doesn't belong where it is but was carried there by a glacier, gives hint to the massive forces of nature that carved these valleys eons ago. The trails through these gifts of nature are not all that difficult, but it takes a guide to enrich the journey with commentary.

And so, last week Sam and his brother, Owen, led me up the mountains and down into the valleys, through the rock formations, beside the flowing waters of the river and around the occasional hint of a previous human occupation. Both were familiar with the area, having walked these trails previously. Both were at home in the wilderness, and both, apparently, were delighted to have me sharing this experience with them.

Owen seemed to be more concerned for my well-being, in that, I, obviously, was a senior citizen. Often he'd move ahead of his brother and me, scouting out the trail that all was clear ahead. On more than one occasion he advised me of some difficult terrain and suggested alternative routes that would avoid them. He seemed at home in the forest as though pumped by the fresh air, the chilling breeze and the raw smell of nature.

Sam, seemed particularly intent on pointing out the various characteristics of acorns that were evident along the trail. At one point we reached a rock out cropping overlooking the Housatonic River. The view was spectacular. Down below a lone soul paddled his kayak up the river. History says we were sitting at the spot where the Native American daughter of a chief and her lover leaped to their death. Sam, undisturbed by the sacred spot, took time to point out the various aspects of an acorn.

Suddenly, he stood up and proclaimed. “I've got to pee.” He dropped his pants and proceeded to do so, oblivious of any others who might pass by on the trail. At that point Owen spoke up without any concern at his brother's dropped pants, and exclaimed, “Hey, Daddy Guy, come see this.”

I pulled up Sam's pants and with his two-year-old hand gripping my finger followed the older guide up the trail.

Here We Go Again

She's sixteen now. Back when I was her pastor she was six. Even then she had a confidence that only a child for whom the future waits possesses. She was then, and is now, precocious, extremely intelligent, with a personality that quietly insist that one pay attention to her lest one miss out on what she may contribute.

My denomination has a rule. That rule says, “When you move, move.” That is to say we are not to try and keep relationships with former church members because they have a different pastor now. When she was six, she didn't care about the rules. She began writing me. Since she was six, I made an exception and I answered her letters. They have come almost weekly. Through her I have been able to keep up with who was doing what, who's sick, who died, who had left the church, who joined, and even, over the last three years, who was the latest young boy to deserve her attention.

Because of that correspondence I did get to be there at significant stages of her life. I was there when her mother fought her cancer. I was there when she sang the National Anthem at a sporting event. And this last week I was there when her new niece was baptized in a private ceremony where the local priest was gracious enough to include me in the liturgy.

After the ceremony, after everyone was picking up and cleaning up the parish hall, she and I found ourselves sitting on a bench outside the sanctuary.

“So, what's new in your life?” I asked.

“What's new? You saw what's new. I'm an aunt. I don't understand my sister. She's a junior in college. She could have waited a couple of years before getting pregnant. But, then again, I love that kid. And it's kind of neat to be an aunt.”

“Besides being an aunt, what's new. School? Boy friend? College plans? Catch me up on things.”

“Well, school's good. Boy friend is out of the question right now. I've decided I have enough adolescent mood swings all by myself. College? Well, maybe Duke or Emory, although I'm considering going ahead and applying to Yale. The worst they could say is 'no'. Right?”

“Right,” I said.

“How about your Mom and your Dad?”

“My Mom and my Dad. Oh, my goodness. I just hope things will change now that the election's over.”

“What do I mean? Just be glad you're not the pastor here any longer. I'd have called you over for some pastoral counseling so many times you wouldn't believe it. Mom was for Mitt Romney. Dad was for President Obama. You would think that after all the years they've been married they would have learned to talk nicely to each other. Oh, my goodness, you should have heard them.”

“Who were you for?”

“Oh, no, I spent the whole year not telling anyone that. If either of them knew what I thought … Well, there's no way I could win.”

“But the election's over. They should be okay now, right?”

“Okay now, are you kidding? Did you read the news stories that Senator Marco Rubio is speaking in Iowa this week? It's already started again.” She took a deep breath and said, “You know, I wish they'd quit running for office and run for America.”

We Were Deprived

“So,” said the four-and-a-half year-old granddaughter, as we sat side by side on the sofa watching the flat screen TV on which the cartoon figures darted about in high definition playful animation, “what was your favorite program when you were my age?”

“Actually, when I was your age we didn't have a television,” I replied with a smile.

She turned from the television and looked at me as small wrinkles of concern accented her forehead. “Oh, I'm sorry; I didn't know your family was so poor.”

“Oh, no, honey,” I assured her. “It wasn't that we were poor; now we weren't rich but we weren't poor. It's just that when I was your age people didn't have television.”

Now the small wrinkles of concern deepened into crevasses of consternation. “People didn't have television?” She shifted on the sofa to face me, the cartoon figures now less important that when she'd invited me to watch her favorite show. “Why didn't people have television?”

“Well, television wasn't available for people in their homes back then. A scientist had invented it, but they didn't know how to make it so it could be sold for people to have it in their homes.”

The lines on her forehead doubled. She moved to her knees, wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me tightly. Quietly she said into my ear, “I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.”

“It's okay,” I said as I patted her back. “There were a lot of things we didn't have back then.”

She moved back to a kneeling position while her left hand remained on my right shoulder and the wrinkles remained on her forehead. There was concern in her voice as she said, “What else didn't you have?”

I thought a second then reached into my pocket and took out my smart phone. “We didn't have cell phones.”

There was a full thirty seconds of silence. It was obvious she was trying to process this electrifying piece of information. “How did you talk to people who were not in your house?”

“Oh, we had phones but they weren't like this. They were connected to a wire that came out of the wall of the house. And that wire went to a wire outside. You know those poles that go down your street?” She nodded. “Well, they call those telephone poles because one of those wires on the pole connected everybody together. So when you talked on the phone in the house your voice when through the wire to the house of the people you were calling.”

Removing her hand from my shoulder and folded her arms across her chest. “Are you teasing me?” I shook my head. She stared at the floor. The program on the television was changing. Now two different cartoon figures were having a conversation on the screen. “You talked on a phone that was hooked to the wall by a wire?”

“That's right.”

“So, how did you talk to people when you were outside or maybe in the car or maybe at the ballgame?”

“We didn't. The phone was in the house.”

She turned back to the television. For five minutes I was irrelevant. Then she turned to me and said, “Computers?”

“We didn't have computers.”

Patting my leg affectionately, she whispered, “Bless your heart.”

Happy Birthday, Ms. Parson

Happy Birthday, Ms. Parson,

Gracious, in December it will be two years since you left. I still miss you a lot. I've gotten on with my life, as you would have wanted me to do. I've gotten a couple of hints from some widow ladies, but, well, you and I are still married.

Things are going good, as good as they can be with you not here to keep us straight. You'd be so proud of your daughter. She's moving up the corporate ladder. And Sara, your granddaughter is now a woman, a drop-dead gorgeous woman. Your grandson is exercising good judgment and assuring his future. The grand kids I brought into our marriage are – well, you know, also exceptional.

The Soup Kitchen you started at the church is still dispensing lots of good food each week. There's a stained glass window in the back of the sanctuary, put in in your memory, that reminds me of you ever Sunday when I preach.

I'm posting this on the QP Blog so I don't want to get too mushy. But I do miss you. And I do love you. And now that you're gone I'm so powerfully aware of the difference you made in the lives of so many, especially me.

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Ms. Parson. In your honor I'll be enjoying a little Crown Royal before I retire tonight.

Parent and Child

Can there be anything worse for a parent than to see a child in pain, physical pain, excruciating pain? The wrinkles of discomfort spread across the child's face reflective of the internal battle within the child's body. The parent stirs in the seat uncomfortably, ill-at-ease with the child beyond the parent's ability to comfort, to make better, to heal the ow-ie.

All children get hurt from time to time, get sick, find themselves in trouble. Often parents can make things right with a first aid kit, caress with a damp cloth a fevered brow, calm the raging waves of difficulty. Not all times is the parent able to accomplish this. There are times when the parent is helpless, times when the best that can be done is to sit in a waiting room until the surgeon comes out to give his report.

These are times of anguish, when the loving care must be put on hold, when parenting skills are useless, when the child's well-being, safety, healing is in hands of another.

Fortunately, such times are few and when they come the outcome is usually good. It is in the aftermath of the surgery, the time when the pain is severe, the body has not yet turned the corner to head toward healing that the parent can be what the parent was intended to be, a parent.

The child smiles at the parent's presence, grateful for a friendly face to fix upon through the haze of pain. The child welcomes the parent with words of gratitude for the parent's presence.

The medication begins to work its magic. The child's speech becomes slurred, the head begins to move slowly toward the chest and then snap back suddenly as the child fights to remain coherent. The battle is futile. The drug wins. The child sleeps. The parent picks up the iPad and resumes reading the new Gresham novel.

Despite the fascinating plot, the parent begins to fill his head nod. Soon, the parent gives up the fight, the tension of the surgery and its tiring aftermath wins. The parent slides down in the chair in a struggle for comfort and dozes, then sleeps.

The moan awakens. The parent rises, walks toward the child noticing tension on the child's face. The pain is returning. The parent looks at his watch. Two more hours before any more of the addictive narcotic. In the kitchen the parent fills the plastic bag with crushed ice cubes. Returning, the parent places the ice pack upon the leg, wrapped from the surgery on the ruptured Achilles tendon. The child moans again. The parent resumes his seat and continues reading the novel.

An hour passes. The child moans. The parent rises. “You okay?” he asks.

“I think the pain killer is wearing off. It's starting to hurt.”

The parent checks his watch, nods, heads to the kitchen for water. He provides the child with a pill and filled glass. The child expresses his thanks. The parent, hearing something, turns, walks to the window and looks out. He then begins picking up this and that, returning dishes to the kitchen, stacking papers and books on the table next to the child.

The child looks up. “You're leaving?”

“I am.”

“But, I mean who's going to take care of things?”

“Look, I love you,” I said, “but you're thirty-eight years old and your wife just drove into the driveway.”