NO BATS IN OUR BELFRY ‘CAUSE WE DON’T HAVE ONE. (WE DO HAVE DECEASED SQUIRRELS, HOWEVER.)

OY! Except for a couple of worship services, a memorial service, and some Bible studies, the last few weeks have been a desolation of anything even vaguely related to proclaiming the Good News. No, wait, I did for real go to a workshop on Inspiring Worship (a real one, not the fun time at Disney I told you about last week.) I got to climb to the top of the tower (pictured,12 stories high) at the University of Florida where the carillon lives and watch (and hear) it being played. A carillon is a collection of tuned bells (really big bells) that are played by making the clapper strike the bell by sort of hitting a giant sized key board with fists and stomping on a pedal board with your feet. It’s really a workout. And if you make a mistake, they hear it for miles around. It’s amazing how complex the music can be.

I was at a dreadful church assembly for days which did little except spend a LOT of money to have a meeting. Then I wasted a couple days trying to head off a crisis by someone trying to claim out church belonged to a certain organization that was trying to get a LOT of money out of someone.

And then there was the Santeria problem. Santeria is an Afro-Cuban religion that sort of hides primitive practices with a very thin layer of Roman Catholic symbolism. I knew it was going to be bad when I opened the mail box and found a broken statue of St. Jude stuffed in a plastic bag. I immediately started looking for the dead chicken that is usually left on church grounds after being sacrificed. I didn’t find one. Later someone found two dead squirrels. I guess with the economy the way it is, chickens cost too much. Squirrels are free. I worried when we only found two squirrels because I pretty well knew there should be three of them. We found that one after Bible study, not quite gone to it’s maker yet. Now I am no fan of these vermin who eat through wood, plaster and aluminum siding to get inside our roof, but I don’t hold with animal sacrifices.

Why do I know about this stuff? ‘Cause I lived in Miami for 21 years and someone was always performing some sort of vile ritual on the church grounds. The worst was the Sunday when I found the head of a goat by the church door. I disposed of it. The next day I found the rest of the goat. I called the police who were none to thrilled about having to haul it away, but it was evidence of a crime.

They never tell you about these things at seminary. That’s because the people at the seminary generally don’t know what really goes on day to day in a typical parish church. They send you on internship to practice with a seasoned pastor to find out. At the parish I served I it was my job to kill bats that swooped into the church during the evening services. They really did have bats in the belfry. No bells, of course, just bats. (I should mention that the tower at UF is carefully screened so that only carillonneurs and not bats or pigeons can get in. Sometimes they let in batty people like me in to watch, but that’s it.

I didn’t think I’d write a blog this week, but my computer is busy running a virus check, and I hate to leave it until I see what sort of junk it has found. Usually it’s hundreds of tracking cookies which it banishes to the virus vault, but it’s running a lot longer than usual tonight, so maybe it found something else, a virus, maybe, or a Trojan horse, or maybe a dead squirrel or a bat.* Never can tell these days. The computer at church has a lizard–not in the computer, just sitting on top of the monitor. It’s very small and not hurting anything, but it can be disconcerting to have this reptile bobbing its head at you while you work.

Anyway, don’t let life drive you batty or make you squirrelly. And if you have ringing in your ears, check to see if there is a carillon nearby before you see your doctor.

May the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne



*Bat joke: A little mouse girl looks up into the sky and sees a bat. She says to her mother, "Look, Mommy, an angel. (Now that's a really bat joke.)








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