Tom Loves the Little Children

No, you freaking pervert. I do not like little children in the Catholic Priest sense. 

I mean instead that this past Sunday I was bestowed with the  job of giving the children's sermon. After having heard horror story after horror story of the misdeeds of the youngsters as they gather around (read: gang up on) their beloved pastor (read: cursed play toy) during this special time (read: absence of God's love) I have actively avoided doing being saddled with the responsibility by demonstrating great eagerness in doing everything else BUT it. 

I am sad to report, however, that the head pastor's father passed away unexpectedly last week and he consequently had to be out of town and would be unable to give his sermon. SOOOO... the assistant pastor had one day to come up with a sermon on a theologically weighty passage and in order to ease her burden I took on the children's sermon.

The experience went smashingly well, mainly because we did not allow the children to come to the front to abuse me in ways that only small children can. Rather I walked down the center aisle and addressed with the safety of a few feet of wooden pews between us. 

The sermon itself made use of what I call "pastoral fiction." Basically, I made up a story to make a point. Here is text:

This morning I want to tell you about my Aunt Gladys. My Aunt Gladys was a tiny woman, about this big, had big round glasses like this and she always had a big frown on her face. Have you ever seen an iguana? Yeah, she kinda looked like that. Aunt Gladys lived out of state so I didn’t see her much. But EVERY Thanksgiving she came to our house for Thanksgiving dinner. And on the night before EVERY Thanksgiving I used to get down on my knees next to my bed and I would pray. I would say, “God I thank you for my family. I thank you for giving me Thursday and Friday OFF from school. I thank you for all the yummy food I’m going to get to eat tomorrow. Oh, and God, I have a request. Please, please, please don’t let Aunt Gladys sit next to me tomorrow.”

You see Aunt Gladys was like the Grinch who stole Thanksgiving. "Tommy sit up straight. Tommy, straighten your tie. Tommy, don’t eat so fast. Tommy, don’t talk with your mouthful. Tommy, eat your vegetables."

I was thankful for many things, but not for Aunt Gladys. What I didn’t understand was that Aunt Gladys loved me. She loved me soooooo soooooo much that she wanted me to grow up to be polit and have good manners. I'm not sure if she was too successful, though.

Maybe some of you have relatives like my Aunt Gladys and I know it may be very, very, very hard, but lets try to thankful for them this year. This Thanksgiving when we say our prayers, let’s thank God for loving relatives like Aunt Gladys. Wanna practice? Let’s try:

“Dear God. Thanks you so much for our families. Thanks you so much for all the yummy food we are going to get to eat on Thanksgiving. Thank you for giving us Thursday and Friday off from school. That's pretty cool god. And God, thank you also for relatives like Aunt Gladys who love us even though its sometimes hard to see. AMEN.” 

I thought the name Gladys would signal to the non-adolescent members of my church that the story was made up, but the comments I received afterward would indicate otherwise and make me feel like a liar.

I was also informed during the passing of the peace directly after that in this neck of the woods they pronounce it "ont" and not "ant."

I dun reckon these is mighty fancy folk.