New digs…

April 2nd, 2004 at 6:22 pm by sillyjoe (Geekness)

I got a laptop! Yay!

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Shouting in the Silence

April 1st, 2004 at 10:05 pm by sillyjoe (Life and Introspection, Religion)

The pastor stands before his congregation, passionately bringing the gospel before them. He’s not yelling. He’s not sweating. He’s not hacking with every breath. But he is passionate and compassionate in his delivery. He is God’s messenger.

The congregation sits in silence. A deacon sits in the front, arms crossed, checking his watch every few minutes. The football game starts at 12:30 and he wants to be home on time. A mother sits about midway through the congregation, pondering what she should cook for lunch for her family of four. Spaghetti? No. Sandwiches? No. Hot dogs…no. Ah heck, let’s just go to Shoney’s. A twenty-something college student sits in the back, nearly asleep. He only came because his mother expected him to. It pleases her for him to show up once a month. He can’t wait for it to be over so he can go party with his friends. A small group of teenagers sits together, whispering and passing notes, oblivious to the pastor’s words. They’re concerned with the latest gossip, who’s dating who, and how Mary Sue Watson got her hicky.

A child sits next to her mother, listening quietly to the words the pastor is saying. She doesn’t understand it all, but she knows one thing…what he’s talking about. She wants it. That love. It sounds good. Her father is gone. He left her mother before she was born. But the child hears the pastor call God a “father to the fatherless.” In the middle of the chaotic silence, the quiet noise that was the congregation, the child stood up and shouted, “Hey preacher! How can I get to know this God you’re talking about!”

The deacon is disgusted. How dare a child interrupt the service. The mother is embarrassed. She can’t believe her child has done such a thing to her, drawing attention to her family. The twenty-something is startled from his fragile slumber, and is trying to figure out what’s going on. The teenagers are broken from their chit-chat and notes, and turn to see who yelled at the pastor.

The pastor calmly stepped down from the pulpit, and walked down the aisle to the young child. “Hello,” he said. “Hi,” she faintly replied. The girl was obviously embarrassed at the attention she had brought on herself, and wished she could crawl into a hole.

The pastor explained to the little girl how she could come to know the God he had described. “Now, would you like to meet Him now?” The little girl replied, “I think I’d like that.” The pastor held out his hand, and the two walked up to the altar together. He sat her down on the steps, and they began to talk and then prayed. An hour later, the deacon was furious. He’d missed the first quarter of his game. The mother was now too late for the buffet at Shoney’s and was trying to figure out where she could take her family for a “celebration” dinner for her daughter’s decision. The twenty-something was asleep again, and the teenagers were back to their notes and chit-chat. But the pastor and the child were no longer the same. That encounter changed them both.

And all it took was a shout in the silence.

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