I've got some people I need to see in the pokey, so I went down there to get authorized to call on them. Lawsy murphy, I ain't never seed so much fol-dee-rol required to get in. I mean, I had to go find my Church Council Chairperson and get her to sign a letter recommending I be given access. I found her at work. When she saw me for the second time in two weeks, she said she could definitely testify that I was, indeed, faithful in visiting. I replied that she didn't know the half of it. So tomorrow, I take her letter, along with a copy of my ordination certificate and some other stuff, down to the jail and ask to please see my wayward parishioners.
Four weeks and counting
The Venturers leave for Great Britain four weeks from today. I got some more fees in the mail. I also took the whole t-shirt design problem that I didn't have time to solve to a local pro, who will finish the design and get the t-shirts made.
A blessing for departure
Send us on our way with joy, O Lord.
Let us meet every challenge
and greet every new friend you bring to us.
May our love for you and each other
be strengthened by our journey together. Amen.
A Mothers Day memory
Next Sunday will be the first Mothers Day in the parish that I will be absent for. Seems strange, but I've got to squeeze a week of so-far unused vacation in somewhere before summer. I never dared miss Mothers Day before, though I had already assigned
that_guy_zach to preach next Sunday, since I get tired of trying to come up with something to say for it. My typical reaction to Mothers Day sentiment (and sermons) is, "Would you like a stack of pancakes to sop up all that syrup?"Anyway, my favorite Mothers Day memory (c. 23 years ago?) was from Calvary UMC in Indianapolis, where the Lay Leader was a sweet old guy retired from the US Army. We were distributing flowers to all the ladies present that morning, and he found himself standing up front with a flat of begonias (or whatever they were), unsure of the correct way to hand them out. So he just looked out over the congregation and said, innocently,
"All right, all you mothers come up here and get these flowers."
I nearly fell off my chair.