I went to church Sunday, for the first time in about a month. I’ve been out of town, for various reasons, several weekends in a row.
Frankly, I’d have been inclined to skip it, if I didn’t have absences to make up. I prefer to skip Mother’s Day and Father’s Day in church, for personal reasons. Please understand that I don’t object to the honoring of parents, just because I myself chose my mother poorly, and have not achieved fatherhood. Heaven preserve me from the kind of people who run around being all outraged all the time, because everything doesn’t include them.
But I prefer to let other people alone in their observances. I’d rather stay home in the bosom of my own bosom.
(Also, I think it would have been nice if Trinity Sunday had gotten at least equal billing. Just sayin’.)
But I went, and it was as uncomfortable as I feared. All the men were given numbered tickets as they came in, and then at a point in the service we were all asked to come forward. It wasn’t just fathers, but all men, so it was inclusive and all that. I stayed in my seat anyway, because I didn’t want to presume to patriarch status, whatever they said.
After congratulations and a prayer, they drew two ticket numbers and announced the winners of the Father’s Day drawing. I think the prizes were restaurant gift certificates.
In the cases of both winners, though, the claims came, not from the men up front, but from their wives back in the pews. Both winners had given the tickets to their wives to hold.
I think there’s some kind of profound lesson, or caution, there.
Don’t know what it is, though.
.