7 Not Very Quick Takes

One

Elphine is super mad because she didn’t wake up at six in the morning. She is planning to make crepes for breakfast and thought she would wake up before even the sun, for some reason that I am having trouble understanding. Told her to make them anyway. Gosh.

Two

Matt sent me this little strange piece about an atheist, in Canada, who fancies herself a minister, and who won’t leave her church even though everyone’s mad she doesn’t, you know, believe in God. Not sure why there’s a big add banner of Trump at the top of the article. Maybe, in my rage, I’m meant to donate to his campaign? That seems unlikely. Anyway, this poor woman. Everyone trying to shove her out of her church, and her just being the wide open clever inviting person that the world requires. I am shocked, shocked I tell you, that membership has fallen so steeply in her congregation. I mean, why isn’t the whole world lining up to sit in her pews, and hear her tender soothing voice? It doesn’t make any sense at all.

Actually, snark aside, I do feel for her. On the one side, the little video sounds like a spoof. If I was going to make a mocking video of an atheist trying to lead a christianish church, it would have been just like that. So it seems ever so awkward that she can’t see the ridiculousness of her own tone, manner, and actual substance. Pity, I think, is really very much in order. On the other side, it must be sort of heartbreaking to trust so deeply in the Power of the Conversation and then discover that no one is interested in having it. I mean, what’s there to talk about? You don’t believe anything except that Jesus didn’t even exist. You know this truly and completely. So, um, what’s there to talk about? What, pray tell, will the conversation be about? I’m just curious.

Funnily enough most people go to church not to have a conversation with the minister, but to hear from and speak to God, in whom they believe. And those that don’t believe in God have lots more interesting things to do than go to church and talk and talk and talk about how there is no God. They might go to the farmers market, say, or to the beach, or enjoy a book. And so there’s the minister by herself, with no one to talk to, not even God. It’s a bleak disappointing picture. Maybe someone will wander in one day, maybe even on Sunday, and tell her about how Jesus really did come, and that he really does exist, and that he both did and said something.

Three

Did I mention that VBS is going really beautifully? We have a truly clever person in our church who, unsatisfied with the bilge that is almost all vbs curriculum, provided us with something from her own mind and heart, and that of her friend. This week we are having a detective school, of which the proprietor is a Mr. Grayson Mertzi. And the clever jokes and puzzles unfold from there. All week more of the big puzzle is filled in, the key to unlock a great inheritance that is waiting for us in a big safe. Tonight, hopefully, the puzzle will click and while all the children are screaming it in a frenzy of recognition and joy, the safe will open and something thrilling will emerge. I’m pretty sure it’s going to balloons and a letter from the Apostle John. It’s going to be awesome.

My favorite part though, is the craft. On day one all the children had to draw a beautiful picture of what they thought the world looked like at creation. On day two, the person next to them had to tear up the picture, and have their picture torn. Tears and sorrow abounded. The craft person gathered all the tears and talked poignantly about sin and sorrow. Day three they wrote a verse out on a bookmark. And last night, they took all the broken pieces and pasted them onto the bookmark to form a new beautiful picture. And all the while, the craft person, preaching the gospel, day by day, clearly and completely. Tonight they’ll get the bookmark, carefully laminated, to take home and keep forever.

Four

I’ve been reading some actual books, shock of all shocks. I’m reading a lovely little book about Anglicanism, by Chuck Collins. I will have a few thoughts about it next week. And I’m reading Lucky Jim, still, which is so funny. And the second Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West. Such a beautiful book. And I’m reading a Jeeves book, of course, and something by Gerald Durrell, can’t remember which one. But the crowning joy, which I know you will all be thrilled about, is that I got my hands (for free) on Jesus Calling. And, I am so happy to say, it is as terrible as I expected and hoped. So I’m going to be writing about that next week, and I know you’ll all be waiting with bated breath, cough.

Five

It is pretty amazing that I have been reading some books. I mean, for the past decade, the best possible way for me to go to sleep was to pick up a book. Almost immediately my head would slump and my mouth fall open. But, somehow, it seems that, with sleeping through the night, and taking a walk up the hill a couple of times a week, and lying on the floor watching Jillian Michaels, my mind is vaguely more alert and I can read a few lines here and there and become smarter and less stupid. In other words, there is hope, for the person who has a lot of children, and who, for a vast number of years, never sleeps at all. Hope and a future, as it were.

Six

Speaking of hope and a future, didn’t watch the debate last night. Was it awful? Or really good? Guess I could get on Twitter and find out. Gak. Color me discouraged about the entire business.

Seven

Here’s the sunflower again. Isn’t it lovely? Would that the sun would emerge and greet it’s golden shiny face.