From Connie

This week the Pastor is speeking about service.

He spoke about being the body of Christ in the world, not just in word, but in deed. He asked us to look at our lives and see where God is calling us to serve.

During the week I answer phones. I sit at a desk, and when someone calls I transfer them or take a message, schedule appointments, talk to clients, doctors, dentists, vets, teachers of my boss' kids. I am a typical secretary and I love my job. I get to interact with people, and I get time to myself. I have space on the wall for framed pictures of my family: sisters, brothers, neices, nephews, my beloved parents. I enjoy eating my chicken salad sandiwches on my lunch break and listening to music.

But my life wasn't always that simple. When I first graduated from college with a degree in Journalism I found myself drawn back into the church I had grown up in. There were so many teenagers and no one to lead them, not one person willing to spend time with them or tell them they were loved. So I put on hold my dreams of pursuing my master's, or taking up that internship at the New York Times, and I settled into my role as Youth Pastor at my church.

I had never had such intense connections with kids younger than me; they were so full of life, so angsty, passionate, so ready to change the world starting with the church. So we pursued those dreams and started to make changes...and started to make some people very angry and uncomfortable. We weren't interested in the walls of the church, we wanted to go beyond, to serve the way that Jesus did. It wasn't long before I was asked to leave, none too kindly for my "worldy" ideas of ministry. I left, disillusioned and downhearted. Two months later I took the job that I've had now for 10 years.

Sometimes I think I gave up too easy, settled into life the way everyone seems to do. What if I had fought for truth? Am I a coward? Is it too late to change the world?

From Alex

Being here is an obligation I've just come to live with. My parents raised me in the church, and my wife still expects me to go. Whenever I skip out for a reason other than deathly illness, I don't hear the end of it until the next week when I put on my tie, and sometimes even that doesn't silence it. It's a routine. Like turning on the coffee pot when I first walk in the kitchen. Listening to the sermon, I take detailed notes. I can pretty much set up the outline exactly like Pastor has it written in his notes without ever having seen them. I know the ways he builds to a climax, three sets of threes buried in there, and the way he slides through a long winded denouement. My notes from a Sunday morning look so similar to my neat, dated, ordered, color-coded college notes that you really can't tell the difference.

God, I am so bored with my life. I am so bored with this routine. Nothing satisfies me anymore. Nothing makes me happy.

From Ms. Leela

Oh Lord, my back is achin', been sitting in this pew too long, wish they'd go ahead and get the new padding they been talking about getting for years. In this church you have to form a committee to discuss the formation of a committee to decide who will be on the committee that elects the committee to make a decision. Whereas, I'm all about lets just get it done, already. Now I see your brains turning, you're already talking about me in your mind, that grumpy old lady, but this attitude, sometimes it's all I've got.

Sometimes I just get so tired of sitting here listening! Sure, Pastor's speaking a great sermon, and then we get to read all about it in Alex's "witty" rendition, but sometimes I think this whole business is just like the committee chain of command. We all expect someone else to start the action. No one wants to start it. Well gal' darn it, I... well, I'm just about fed up with it. I just don't want to be the first one to get up and say something.

From Doug

For the past 13 years I have felt the same way. Deep in my stomach, this bubbling fear rises and turns into nausea. Sometimes I despise my job, especially the way it makes me feel, mostly unappreciated, mostly ignored, mostly small and insignificant. But despite it all, there are moments of joy, moments of clarity, and I know I would never quit, there is no other life for me. Anything else would be easy, anything else would not be work.

I imagine that someone out there enjoys his job, comes home from that job and leaves all of it at work, takes nothing into his home, his life. And in his home, he enjoys life, he enjoys family, and he is happy. There must be someone like that, right? Then I realize it's not that the man has a perfect life, it is only that he is content with the life he has, and I am content with my life. I don't regret anything I've done, and as for what I've left undone, it's just never been the right time. I just go about my life and do my job to the best of my ability, and when my job is done, well my job is never done, but when the day is over, I go home and I read or I watch some tv, and then sleep and wake and do it again.

Looking at it like that does make me feel a little depressed about my life. But I'll get over it, I always do.

From Connie

"Friendship is an entire sameness, and one soul: a friend is another self."


The ancients wrote this, but it was quoted in a commentary on 1 Samuel regarding the friendship of David and Saul's son, Jonathon. The ancients. I just love the way that sounds when spoken, especially when whispered: "The ancients." I picture them in their long white togas, perhaps with thin bands of gold adorning their foreheads as they, amongst the pillared halls of knowledge, discuss ideas we have long forgotten and relearned, and forgotten again.

I am sure these ancients were wise, and they must have had great friendships. There have been innumerable people who have touched my life, who have shown me majestic things, or taught me priceless lessons, but I've never met anyone who shared my soul. My soul is just about as plain as I am, but I am fond of it, nonetheless. I suppose it is much stricter with me than some souls, not as free as others, but my soul and I live quite happily together. Maybe we are too complete to find a friend like that, outside of our one true love. But my love doesn't count, he is my soul, and he is me, not because I am good enough, never, but because I want him, I need him, and because I let him.

"Jonathon and David were this kind of friends. The covenant that Jonathon made with David was the sort made by a lesser man to a greater man, a pledge of allegiance if you will. Yet, Jonathon was the son of a King and David was a Shepherd. He humbled himself to create a space into which the friendship could grow, the covenant could run deeper."

From Alex

About 13 years ago I volunteered to write the church newsletter as a way to impress my fiance. Occasionally, I would slip little inside jokes in or secret messages. Emily loved that. Now I continue to write it as a way to piss her off. She'll ask me to do the dishes on a Monday night, "Oh sorry, Ems, I gotta get over to the church and write the newsletter." Works every time. I've gotten out of taking out the trash, bathing the children, walking the dog, all sorts of boring stuff using the letter as an excuse. In reality it only takes a few minutes.

"In our modern society, convenience has come to take precidence over covenant, happiness over holiness."

At the end of every week's letter, there's a section where I write a few paragraphs about what the Pastor taught on Sunday. I really enjoy taking the words of the pastor and trying to make them interesting for the congregation to read. I count it as my Christian service. I will probably never write a sermon, not because I couldn't, but because I don't need to, but I can summarize like you couldn't believe. I've had little old ladies in the church tell me they almost cried reading my summary of last week's sermon. Pastor always says "Great job! Great job!" I'm fairly certain he's never read one of them. Once he has preached a sermon, he is done with it. Connie, on the other hand, is always rather eager to draw me aside and try to correct me. She always tells me I misunderstood what the Pastor was trying to convey, I just look concerned and nod, and disregard what she says, that woman cares a little too much about what the Pastor has to say.

From Ms. Leela

That over there is Brother Richard, he sings in the choir but he is absolutely no good, but he's been singing forever, and no one has the heart to tell him. I'd tell him myself, Lord knows I tell everyone everything, but that poor boy, well Lord, he's not really a boy, he's at least 50, but I think he'd die of a broken heart if he ever found out. Never married, poor guy. Well there's plenty of those in this congregation what never married, there's Paul and Jim, and even Doug. Of course I've never been married, but that was my choice. Lord knows some men tried, but I was always too set in my ways, too stubborn, I'll be the first to admit I'd make a terrible wife or mother! My sister has, boy, 4 or 5 kids now, I used to mind them sometimes when she needed to go to the doctor. They're all grown now and none of them ever talk to me if that tells you anything.

Sitting in the back are the Prticherds, Loui and Jan. They come in after the service starts and slip out during Pastor's last long winded prayer. Lord knows how I even know their names. I think someone took their seat once and they had to sit further in, got caught in the after-church web as I like to call it. Now that's a web, none of that internet crap, it's got nothing to do with webs, but the way people stick to each other after a church service, catching up, gossiping, making lunch plans, now that's a sticky mess, Lord how I love it! Well if it weren't for church, I'd hardly have any friends, or enemies for that matter, Ha!

Now up there right up under Pastor's nose, that's Connie. Lord, if there was ever a "church" lady that woman would be their hero! She's the sort I never bother with much, not much of a talker, but oh my skies, once I sat beside her and the woman's got some pipes in that scrawny chest of hers! Not so much loud, but sweetest tune I ever heard. Never does sing solos in church, or even in the choir, I assume it's on account of her being so shy about her looks and all. She's the sort I can't even talk about much behind her back: too sweet. Every time I do, I gotta go home and pray like I'm commiting one of the seven deadlies. There's another one never married, though everyone in the world, or at least the church, knows that old Brother Doug would give his right arm to make her his little lady, well not that little seeing as she's almost a foot and a half taller than him. But everyone knows. Everyone except maybe Connie. There again, something I can actually keep myself from telling another person! Maybe I'm not such an old gossip after all! Or maybe I just like to watch the little story play out, them being unrequited lovers and all. Neither of them could ever win a beauty contest, but Lord, never have two people been so perfect for each other and so clueless of that fact!