When All Is Said And Done

If I had just a penny for every time a child acted inappropriately during church service, I would have a scholarship in my name at the Bo'. And I would get not one, but two gyms named after me. And endow the CSRC. I would demand that anxious little student interns at the admissions office point out my building on my campus map and threaten to withdraw my money if the map she uses was not up-to-date enough to include my building. I would not sign up for Common Good Day ahead of time but show up at registration, the day of, and expect to be placed "away from the convalescents." But first, the church service-

I don't know how they do it in the South, those long, all-weekend, all-day revival services. We've had elaborate church services three days in a row this week and I'm absolutely pooped. (Did a shoddy translation job, btw...) Some highlights from the Christmas eve service:

The skits being drowned out by the cries of scared children (when the lights of dimmed), children who, moments earlier, were quite lively and shouting "Happy Jesus!" into the microphone (the two-year-old had not yet learned how to say 'Birthday,' it turns out, and could only manage 'Happy Jesus.')

The adults performed a skit in mime. I didn't really understand it. Except that there were a lot of bottles of 'prop' beer and the acting on that part, was very convincing, almost a little too much so.

Favorite line from the skit: Hey, Christians celebrate Christmas, too! Who knew?

Oh, the sheep and the shepherds. The preschool and K-5 children were split into sheep and shepherds, with the more mature kids, who were actually capable of memorizing lines, being the shepherds and the trouble makers the sheep to be watched. The shepherds spoke into the microphone on cue and sang when called upon. The sheep were the delinquents, those too unruly or too shy to perform normally. They hit each other and paced around on stage and generally didn't know what was going on. Christopher, a sheep, pulled his sheep ears down so far that they were over his eyes and served as a visor. They did al, however, sheep and shepherds, sing "Jesus Loves Me" beautifully, until they were dragged off stage. Literally. The sheep were being pulled off by angry teachers. It was awesome. I don't think I need to tell you who I loved more, sheep or shepherd.

A malfunctioning projector turned group singsperation time into uncomfortable solo for theMan Leading Service. Without the projected lyrics, no one knew the words to 'O Come O Come Emanuel' except for Man Leading Service, who had the words in front of him. So he sang (at times unsurely) all the verses by himself while we all stared at him and tried to hum along. Awesomest impromptu solo ever.