“How are you doing?” Sam asks after we show up to church half an hour late for Sunday school – again. It’s been another rough week, and I guess she can see that, even if she wasn’t one of the few people my armor will let inside to see the real me.
Mrs. Ferguson is standing nearby, leaning against the Grace
and Truth bookshelf to relieve back pain from her ninth pregnancy. Her oldest
daughter Kerra’s married now, and Josh soon will be, it looks like from the
grapevine.
“Um…I’m
all right, I’m fine,” I say.
“And
by that, he means it’s hell,” Mrs. Ferguson grins, and she lumbers down toward
the kitchen. Sam crushes me in a gigantic hug, pulling away after our youth
pastor Steven coughs.
“Your
eyes said more than your words.” Her voice has a quiet undertone.
“Thanks.”
“Sorry
to hear about Sunny,” Steven says. “Losing a dog is tough.”
“It’s
all right. She was old, and arthritic, and nearly blind, and –“ I bolt for the
kitchen. I need coffee if I’m going to stay awake during Marie’s dad’s sermon
from the Gospel of John.
There are a lot of empty spaces in the pews; what with the
mass exodus and all. It wasn’t even orchestrated, really, not that anyone could
tell. Just one family leaves for some legitimate reason, then another, and then
another, and it’s like Welll…who’s left? Not
the DeSpains, or the Buckmasters, or the Lawsons (and Cassie’s at OU now,
anyway, so it’s not like we can chat about writing). Mr. Gundersen’s been
thinking of taking a long-term trip to his vacation house in the Arkansas
Ozarks, and he can’t really be blamed for needing the rest, though it is kind
of worrisome. It will take a while to stop thinking of him as the pastor, since
he stepped down from that role last month.
In the prayer requests it looks like Justin Selby just blew
up his hand with some fireworks, I bet Melody was worried sick. Marie is
mentioned again as needing prayer…that’s not a surprise to any of us who were
in the youth group. She was just lacking – It,
whatever that was. We all knew that she would be eaten alive once she was
out on her own. And there were a lot of problems each of us were dealing with,
just trying to keep ourselves together and reasonably in one piece to get
through high school and slowly progress through college. Lots of people’s
parents dying from cancer, which is horrible. Dad’s out of a job again, which
is somehow normal. Dylan’s working on a ranch in Wyoming over the summer, so
pray for safety for him, and peace of mind for his parents. He’s doing all
right, though it can get lonely up there, from what I’ve heard. But he’ll be
okay.
Hymns we’ll be singing today, hmm… “In Christ Alone,” that’s
a great one, of course, wasn’t it ages ago that I learned that? Feels like it.
“What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” that’s one we forget to ponder too often.
“How Firm a Foundation” is another great choice. Bennett and Laura are doing a
fantastic job on guitar and piano – it was always fun when Laura filled in for
Josh when we were leading the youth group’s worship music, she played at a fast
enough pace that my strumming didn’t sound like I was rushing things.
Rags will be sad that I have to immediately head back to
school, but cats can’t rule the world like they think they can. Finish
revising/updating that story where they try to, if there’s time. Then SWAT has
a special rehearsal for the show Wednesday night, and there’s volleyball
practice after the Monday night worship service, with the state BCM tournament
coming up next weekend. Note to self, check to make sure everyone brings their
scripts just in case they need them. Okay, then – not ready for this next week
up ahead, but here goes.
This was a weird experiment, kind of like I was consciously
constructing a dream, given the wild mishmash of events and the blurry
first-person stream-of-consciousness narration. Maybe I should have chosen “a
typical Sunday morning at church” for the event to condense. But there was
plenty of material to choose from – that’s one of the good things about going
to the same church for fourteen years. The bad thing can be that the ghosts of
those gone, or of events past, can sometimes pop up and dominate the scene in
real life. So they don’t need any encouragement, swirling the history all
together into a McFlurry (do those still exist?) like this assignment asked for.
The prompt asked what we gained and lost by this experiment.
I’d say that I recognized again what a rough couple of years our church has
been through, with nearly every family going through at least one or two
chronic-stress events. There was a lot of trials and characters that were left
out of this sketch, of course – it asked for a compliation of a typical event.
Not everything fits. And though the facts have been chewed though a blender, as
far as chronology and everything, I think the tone was kept, more or less. I
don’t really like this piece, but some writing one likes and some is just to
beat the deadline. The honesty was stripped away, by mangling the timeline, and
that kills the spirit, even if the style can produce interesting and sometimes
pretty effects like CDs when microwaved.
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