dual personalities

How was your weekend? I went home a little early on Friday and got right in my pajamas and hunkered down, as I had been fighting off some version of this winter’s flu for a few days. I went to bed and didn’t wake up ’til almost 10 o’clock the next morning which is four hours later than usual. I stayed in bed most of the day reading Willa Cather, only rousing myself to talk to loved ones on the phone.

But the next day was Sunday and I was scheduled to be a lay reader, so I got up, endeavored to make myself presentable and went to church. I read the second lesson which turned out to be some excellent fire and brimstone from Saint Paul to the Corinthians warning about sexual immorality etc.: “We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents.” Oh, how I do love him. And I say that without irony.

We also sang “Bread of Heaven”, one of my favorite hymns, which always conjures up images of the Reverend Jones in The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain

stabbing the tires of the surveyor’s car while muttering the refrain of this hymn. The words, indeed, are all quite evocative:

When I tread the verge of Jordan
Bid my anxious fears subside
Death of death, and hell’s destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan’s side

I left church renewed and with a light heart and feeling that a reward to myself was overdo. So I went to my neighborhood Dunkin’ Donuts:

for a cup of:

and this crispy goodness:

Life is good. But lest we forget: “So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.” (I Cor. 10:13) Have a great week!