Nice Weekend
Nice, easy weekend. Summer arrived. Caught up on sleep.
Church was interesting. It was graduation day for the Sunday school. There are about 90 kids from pre-K to high school. Each age group was assigned a specific part of the liturgy to perform. The littlest ones were very cute and bumptious. The high schoolers were a revelation on several levels. They were assigned the sermon for the day, a passage from the New Testament involving Jesus and the tax collector.
Well, they started off with a dance to the Beatles recording, "The Taxman"; three rather shapely young women (even to this gay eye) bumping and grinding to what was essentially a disco song. Right in front of the altar. Then a kind of tag-team homily divided among three other teens on the subject of either taxes in general (one of the disco dancers opined, how she hated having to pay taxes when she shopped for shoes) or people they felt were taxing or obnoxious in various ways (an assistant principal at school.) I think the general idea was that Christians should not act on their fears and hatreds and instead should follow Jesus' example and invite the "taxman" to dinner.
But, along the way, the congregation was treated to a litany of the sorts of punishment they would refrain from inflicting on their enemies in the name of Christian forebearance: chopping their heads off and stuffing them on sticks; strangling them; putting a fist in their face. Okay.
It was a gutsy performance. And I think they managed to pull it off. No one's going to argue with a dozen people in the full bloom of youth, with access to a sound system. Moments after they left the pulpit, the sanctuary was treated to the sights and sounds of grades being called out and diplomas and gifts (frisbees) handed out. Because most of the performers were seated in the front rows it was a rare opportunity to watch church kids interact with each other. The key word here, seemed to be _relaxed_. The guys in particular. I was struck by how many of them were in fact young men. And pretty ordinary, I'm pleased to say. Tees and sneakers seemed to be the dress code. They knew when to stand and when to kneel. But, they did it to their own inner rhythm. They weren't shy about whispering or sharing a joke during long passages of priestly boilerplate. Or looking around the room, sometimes with their backs completely to the altar. Or, slouching as they easily recited prayers memorized since they were toddlers.
It was easy to see them entering college anxious to never stare virginity in the face again. It was also just as easy to imagine some of them continuing their spiitual journey on some level, participating in prayer groups, perhaps itself as a form of protest. It could go either way.
It was an occasion for bitter-sweet memories of my own teen-aged years, estranged from the Church, from my mother's constant attention to my decorum and grooming. You can bet there was no bumping and grinding in the Baptist church where I grew up.
Well, that's it from Lake St. Michael's, where the women are smart, the men are good looking and all the children are precocious.
Church was interesting. It was graduation day for the Sunday school. There are about 90 kids from pre-K to high school. Each age group was assigned a specific part of the liturgy to perform. The littlest ones were very cute and bumptious. The high schoolers were a revelation on several levels. They were assigned the sermon for the day, a passage from the New Testament involving Jesus and the tax collector.
Well, they started off with a dance to the Beatles recording, "The Taxman"; three rather shapely young women (even to this gay eye) bumping and grinding to what was essentially a disco song. Right in front of the altar. Then a kind of tag-team homily divided among three other teens on the subject of either taxes in general (one of the disco dancers opined, how she hated having to pay taxes when she shopped for shoes) or people they felt were taxing or obnoxious in various ways (an assistant principal at school.) I think the general idea was that Christians should not act on their fears and hatreds and instead should follow Jesus' example and invite the "taxman" to dinner.
But, along the way, the congregation was treated to a litany of the sorts of punishment they would refrain from inflicting on their enemies in the name of Christian forebearance: chopping their heads off and stuffing them on sticks; strangling them; putting a fist in their face. Okay.
It was a gutsy performance. And I think they managed to pull it off. No one's going to argue with a dozen people in the full bloom of youth, with access to a sound system. Moments after they left the pulpit, the sanctuary was treated to the sights and sounds of grades being called out and diplomas and gifts (frisbees) handed out. Because most of the performers were seated in the front rows it was a rare opportunity to watch church kids interact with each other. The key word here, seemed to be _relaxed_. The guys in particular. I was struck by how many of them were in fact young men. And pretty ordinary, I'm pleased to say. Tees and sneakers seemed to be the dress code. They knew when to stand and when to kneel. But, they did it to their own inner rhythm. They weren't shy about whispering or sharing a joke during long passages of priestly boilerplate. Or looking around the room, sometimes with their backs completely to the altar. Or, slouching as they easily recited prayers memorized since they were toddlers.
It was easy to see them entering college anxious to never stare virginity in the face again. It was also just as easy to imagine some of them continuing their spiitual journey on some level, participating in prayer groups, perhaps itself as a form of protest. It could go either way.
It was an occasion for bitter-sweet memories of my own teen-aged years, estranged from the Church, from my mother's constant attention to my decorum and grooming. You can bet there was no bumping and grinding in the Baptist church where I grew up.
Well, that's it from Lake St. Michael's, where the women are smart, the men are good looking and all the children are precocious.