Well, the move is a bust before I even begin to pack, as none of the boys want to leave the point, let alone the country. Sam plants a kiss on my cheek as we get out of his car. He motions for me to wait as he comes around to my side, umbrella held high. The ground isn't shaking today but it is soaked right through with more rain falling all around us. I take his arm and we head into the church. It's early. He needs to turn the heat on and do a quickie clean. He prefers to have Jesus beach in July and August, but just a single service instead of two a day and there will only be one today but it has to be in the church due to this humid wet weather. When we get inside, he shakes out the umbrella, leaving it open on the floor. We go our separate ways, him to the thermostat to crank up the heat, me to the broom closet to fetch the mop and dusters. Between the two of us we get the whole church ready inside of forty minutes and then he asks if I can set out the hymnals while he turns on lights and prepares his notes for service. He disappears down the hall to his office while I got row by row with the cart, three bibles and two hymnals per row. There are never enough so people need to share but no one minds and he's actually not one to dredge up unfamiliar songs, in fact he's the opposite, making one inevitable leap past Jacob and leading the congregation in a rare popular/secular hymn refrain, which is always fun and appreciated as we don't need the hymnals then at all. James Taylor is always a frequent choice. I'm not sure why but I appreciate the lighter fare.
Church turns out to be somewhat quiet and ill-attended anyway. For a rainforest people here seem awfully afraid of rain. None of the boys come later on, and so I stay behind to help Sam wrap things up, collecting forgotten umbrellas and sweaters for the lost and found box, loading bibles and hymnals back onto the rolling library cart and wheeling it back into the storage room. Sometimes the church is used by the community for outreach and for meetings and bibles disappear if left out so Sam put up a sign on the hallway door that says if you need or want a bible please check in at the office and if people do he has wonderful ones that are brand new sealed in beautiful cloth wraps that he inscribes with your name or the name of the recipient.
It's kind of nice to see in a dying industry. Not Christianity, but in people willing to devote their lives to spreading the word.
I wouldn't be able to do it. I have an abundance of questions and a deficit of patience. I'm also a card-carrying heathen so it would be hypocritical for me to ask people to accept the lord and live a Godly existence when I....don't?
Maybe I try to. In some parts of my life. Just not all.
When we get home PJ and Lochlan have been driven by guilt to set out a hot lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for us, complete with homemade crackers and chocolate milk.
I'm warm again. I went to change into warmer clothes and Lochlan follows me upstairs.
Did Sam talk you out of the move?
No? Was he supposed to?
When you get a bug in your brain, I never know where you're going to go with it.
Oh, I know we're not moving.
We can, it would just take a lot of planning. And if some of them don't want to go-
I'd rather we stay here and stay together.
He visibly relaxes. Me too.
I'm not going to disband the Collective. Not in a million years.
Church turns out to be somewhat quiet and ill-attended anyway. For a rainforest people here seem awfully afraid of rain. None of the boys come later on, and so I stay behind to help Sam wrap things up, collecting forgotten umbrellas and sweaters for the lost and found box, loading bibles and hymnals back onto the rolling library cart and wheeling it back into the storage room. Sometimes the church is used by the community for outreach and for meetings and bibles disappear if left out so Sam put up a sign on the hallway door that says if you need or want a bible please check in at the office and if people do he has wonderful ones that are brand new sealed in beautiful cloth wraps that he inscribes with your name or the name of the recipient.
It's kind of nice to see in a dying industry. Not Christianity, but in people willing to devote their lives to spreading the word.
I wouldn't be able to do it. I have an abundance of questions and a deficit of patience. I'm also a card-carrying heathen so it would be hypocritical for me to ask people to accept the lord and live a Godly existence when I....don't?
Maybe I try to. In some parts of my life. Just not all.
When we get home PJ and Lochlan have been driven by guilt to set out a hot lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for us, complete with homemade crackers and chocolate milk.
I'm warm again. I went to change into warmer clothes and Lochlan follows me upstairs.
Did Sam talk you out of the move?
No? Was he supposed to?
When you get a bug in your brain, I never know where you're going to go with it.
Oh, I know we're not moving.
We can, it would just take a lot of planning. And if some of them don't want to go-
I'd rather we stay here and stay together.
He visibly relaxes. Me too.
I'm not going to disband the Collective. Not in a million years.