The worst part of our 7 week prayer/study with Foster's STREAMS OF LIVING WATERS was sitting in my chair with my afternoon cup of coffee, utterly entranced with some turn of the pages and wishing that you were sharing this wonder with me.
Almost as bad was the list of folk at the beginning of each chapter, exemplifying the stream under consideration; a list that always held a handful of friends joyfully recognized, a number of nodding acquaintances, and bunches of total strangers awaiting an introduction. How many afternoons would it take to forge relationships with this wealth of saints? Think of all those not listed: brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and third cousins twice removed. It's a good thing we have all of eternity to get to know each other.
Robert Benson showed up in a box of books returning from a Cursillo weekend. This was a bit odd since I had never seen him before. He hadn't been sent forth in the box. A stowaway. Investigations revealed that he belonged to the retreat leader who wanted him back. A bad two days ensued while half the staff tried to find him again. He was hiding on the bottom shelf of steals, deals and heresies; a place he had no business being in. The title? BETWEEN THE DREAMING AND THE COMING TRUE--The Road Home to God. Brought up in the Evangelical steam...I mean stream...Benson found peace amongst the sacramental folk. His book is accessible and gently inspiring. Now if I can just get him on the road home to the retreat leader. ($13 new.)
"Read this," our newest volunteer, Sunnie said. She handed me JESUS TALES by Romulus Linney. "I can't decide about it. It's very irreverent. Funny. Strange."
"OK." I stick the book under my arm. I never have understood how one book separates itself from the heap and ends up getting passed around.
At home I discover that Mary Mosby had donated it to the church library in 1981. Mary Mosby had the laughingest blue eyes you've ever seen. She probably still does; seems to me the Lord would want those eyes in heaven. Once she gave me $50 to help me go to a Holy Spirit convocation in New Orleans. You might say I quickly became favorably disposed toward the book.
The author got interested in apocryphal New Testament stories and wove a bunch of them together into a novel about Jesus and St. Peter. It's a NOVEL--says so right on the cover. A novel about how Joseph got stuck with Mary and what a pain it was raising a kid who did miracles; about St. Peter and the Lord traveling all over the world doing good and having fights. About a Texan town with a drunken priest and St. Peter's familial problems.
The book is funny, wonderfully irreverent and I cried at the end. Not at the end of the novel, but at the scripture from John afterward, when I got in one great gulp what the author had done. He'd wrapped words around the scrap of love he'd received and was offering it out for us to taste--which is about all any one of us can hope to do anyway. Out of Print $10.
(Robert just went outside to shoot a marauding cat with his BB gun. The dog doesn't even bother to raise her head. I don't see the point in this protection of our ancient cat's food, since what the neighbor's cat leaves behind will be scarfed up by the raccoons and blue jays. Besides, Robert always misses. Obviously the main entertainment is in running for the BB gun. Welcome to Summer.)
I am somehow supposed to write my IN THE SPIRIT column for the Sentinel every other week now. This is only going to fly if you send me some interesting info. Please help.
And while I'm in 'please help' mode, we may need another musician for my son's wedding in July since our chief guitarist broke her wrist on a fund raising bike ride for Fresno Youth for Christ. That's Suzy, who had surgery Thursday, for all you praying family camp folk.
"I try to live one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once." Ashley Brilliant (Quoted in David Allen's GETTING THINGS DONE - The Art of Stress Free Productivity $25.)
Blessings,
Alliee +