The Second Sunday After Pentecost, 2023
Yesterday was a good day. The travel gods delivered me to church in plenty of time despite the weekend subway changes. There was a man with a deep, baritone voice seated in the pew behind me, so it was nice to have someone else singing besides me. I was looking forward to going to Dive Bar afterward with Pale male, but we all got the surprise of our church lives when Mr. K attended what was only the second coffee hour I have ever seen him attend in 25 years! And Pale Male and I had his complete attention for about fifteen minutes, maybe longer (no one was looking at their watch!) We talked about everything from snails (I had been showing Pale Male pictures of my fish tank) to the politics of his native Northern Plains. He seemed especially smitten by the topic of snails and peppered me with questions about them. It was almost as if we were part of an improv group and he was deliberately feeding me straight lines ("How do snails reproduce?", "Do you eat them?") By the end of our conversation, he had begun to use the snails as a metaphor for the day's sermon which had been about our uniquely American way of avoiding community until we reach old-age. ""Maybe, we're all snails", he said, "slowly finding our way back to church." And with that, he all but gave us a version of his familiar radio send-off, "Well now, I guess I'll be seeing you gentlemen next week." The coffee hour crowd surged around us after the famously shy humorist left. "How did you do it?", one of the vestry people asked in astonishment. "He really locked in on you guys." I really got the feeling people had been waiting for that moment for a long time. Pale Male had the simplest explanation of all. "I think he just wanted to connect."