First Day of Church Fall

Yes, Patricia did say “wuss” in church today for the first time, something she realized after she’d done it. Actually she quoted the word “wuss” in this email from a reader of her sermon “Glenn Beck’s God Is Not My God.”

“Frankly, Templeton,” he wrote, “my God can actually, you know…do stuff. Your deity is a weak, impotent, little wuss who can’t seem to do much of anything without human help. Why anyone would ever be attracted to your pathetic excuse for a deity completely escapes me.”

I’m pulling this from the sermon first because it tickles me. But, anyway, so Patricia’s response:

“I say there is true strength in compassion.

I say there is courage in the fight for justice.

I say there is toughness in love and grace and forgiveness.

And there is nothing wussy or impotent or pathetic about it.”



And Amen.

I think that the way people perceive God is a clear indication of their mental state. But God Herself, of course, just Is. Despite all of the bad we are capable of and that we commit, we still have the capacity to hope for the best in our natures to prevail. That’s Her.

On a separate subject, I have to say that I think my mother Mary met just about everyone in the St. Dunstan’s directory this morning as I wheeled her around from the narthex to the parish hall and kitchen, and back to the choir room, so she could see it while the choir was in the sanctuary rehearsing before the service. It really is its own little sanctuary, and feels like it’s sort of nestled in the woods with all of the glass.

She laughed in Sunday School (our first day back! “Christianity for the Rest of Us”), shared Hymnal and Prayer Book with me (which meant I didn’t have to stand for anything), and enjoyed both drinking and spilling multiple cups of coffee, until when we got in the car the first thing she said was “I think I’ve had too much coffee.” She was completely charmed.

So whatever God has on Her resume—if She can fly a plane or program a computer—whatever the skills Patricia’s reader above may have had in mind—I do know this: She would have been pleased—hey, perhaps She was even present—to see us gathered this first day of church fall as a community, moving as easily (and lovingly I might add) around each other as amoebas in a Petri dish.