Accompanying My Accompanist

It's Monday morning after a wonderful Sunday yesterday. I accompanied my musical accompanist, Lola Flushpoole, at lunch today after she invited me to eat out. I'd much rather eat out than go home and cook and eat alone, so I was happy to accept. We ate lunch at a local Mexican restaurant. Lola is both tall and squat. She's a retired high school choir teacher, with shoulder-length gray hair and glasses, and she's full of stories. Over taco salad, she freely admitted, "I'm an only child. That's why I'm a hypochondriac. I always worried about my health because I thought that if anything happened to me, it would kill my parents and it probably would have. They waited 11 years to have me and I came after many miscarriages. So I've always been a hypochondriac. It's great now because I can go online and look up whatever disease I think I have, and a web page will tell me that yes, I have it. And that I have about two weeks to live." She smiled and went on. "I'm fat. My students used to joke about it. I didn't care. I just laughed too. I heard one of my students describing where I bought my clothes. He said, "Mrs. Flushpoole buys her clothes at one of those shops that has grande sizes. You know, Large, Extra Large, and Oh My God It's Coming This Way."

Electrifying Experience

I've told stories about my members doing outrageous things. Now here's one about me. When I moved into the house the preacher lives in, called a "parsonage", it had electrical issues. I thought we had those fixed. However, last night the hall light, which had had a faulty socket, stopped working. I thought at first the light bulb had burned out so I got up on the stepladder to change it. While I was screwing it out, it flashed at me! I jumped violently and almost fell off the ladder. Then I got mad at that lightbulb for flashing me while I was screwing it. I was determined to get it out.

I broke it.

Now I have a busted lightbulb and a still-faulty socket. When I called Bob Veeblefetzer, one of the trustees, he could hardly stop laughing.

The Little Lost Teeth

Esther Esoffigus is in her seventies. She's got red hair and green eyes and cat's glasses. She and her gray-haired, quiet husband Stan came over this evening. They've been married many years, but given what happened on their honeymoon, it started off strangely. Esther lost her front teeth when she was young, and spent more time than she would have liked in a dentist's chair. In those days water and toothpaste weren't fluoridated so tooth loss was a common problem. By the time she married, Esther had a full set of upper front false teeth. She was bending over the bathroom sink to brush them on the first honeymoon night. Her teeth fell out of her mouth, down the drain, and into the U-shaped pipe under the sink. Fortunately Stan's a good handyman. He unscrewed the pipe and took out the teeth for his blushing bride. It didn't cool their passions a bit, then or now.

Sunday Power

An elderly man, one of the church's trustees, came up to me after the worship service was over and said, "This is kind of personal but I really felt the Holy Spirit in worship today. I haven't felt that way before." Then he shed a tear or two. I was deeply touched, and I'm glad we have that kind of worship at the Smalltown church.

Bracing Myself for...

I'm going to visit a wild old man in a nursing home next week. He likes to wander over to the women's nursing home wing, wander up and down the halls, and lie down on their beds. I don't know whether the women are there or not when he does this. I've also been warned to keep a safe distance from him as he may hold onto me and not let go. He's 101 years old but his strength isn't.

Lonely. Homesick.

Moving is hard. I recall a wise woman saying that moving is like being pregnant. The pain is both unbearable and forgettable. I'm still in the unbearable phase. To push the pregnancy analogy, this baby is gonna take months to get born. I'm lonely. I'm homesick for Austin. Boo hoo. Goodbye.

Short Snappy Story

Elderly Emma Ertle is a widow in my congregation. She speeds around in her giant blue Cadillac and I mean she speeds. She's 97 years old with white hair and thick glasses and barely sees over the top of the dashboard as she whizzes by. She's proud of all the speeding tickets she has collected. She frames them and hangs them on the wall. I wonder how many teenagers and twentysomethings Mrs. Ertle has run off the road.

Out of civilization then back, sort of

Holy cannelloni! I've got culture shock after Austin. Smalltown is mostly poor and Hispanic, although there are affluent Hispanics and Anglos here too. I was probably sent here as a modern day missionary. After 11 years in Austin, here I am in a new world. As Monty Python used to say, "And now for something completely different." Smalltown is near a large Texas city and a world away at the same time. I live in a house so old that in order to run this computer, I had to put a three-prong adapter into the two-prong wall outlet in order to plug in my surge protector! The cord runs into the bathroom next door which actually has a three prong outlet. What a setup! No worries. The electrician is coming Thursday to take care of that and some other electrical issues around here. The A/C person is coming to put in a 13 or higher SEER A/C instead of the 10 SEER outdated unit that can’t keep up with cooling the house in triple digit humid summer in the tropics. I’ve learned a lot about home improvement in the last few days, including SEER ratings on A/C units. Not my usual field of knowledge. I’m homesick for Austin, yes, but after my first Sunday and first sermon, the people are rallying around to fix everything in the house that needs it. They got somewhat behind on maintenance but are playing catch-up very fast and I appreciate that.Many people have said they’re excited to have me here, and I'm getting excited too. One very elderly man held onto me Sunday after church and actually wept and told me he was fighting cancer, that he’d “seen everything”, usually didn’t feel well, but was determined to keep going for as long as he could. He’s a retired electrician. I am surrounded by people with practical skills which is great. Frees up time for me to do the pastor thing I’m here to do. Plus, my talents in A/C repair, small appliance fixits, welding, and electricity aren’t my strong points. I see a few burned out houses, and also a brand new library and a beautiful pediatric medical office built with a giant train in front. Easier to picture than describe, so maybe I’ll put a picture of it in my blog. Hope and despair are juxtaposed side by side here. I pray that I can live by embodying hope and transmit that hope to the Smalltown congregation, even though I'm very lonely and homesick right now.