I still can’t quite settle on a church that feels like home. I stopped going all together for several months, and I have to say that Norton was pretty irritating about it, although to his credit he stopped short of calling me a hell bound backslider.
Sometimes it’s the little things that seem to connect everything together. I’ve tried imagining how those farmers know how to carve out the pictures in the cornfields when they’re at ground level. I mean it’s not like they have a spotter in the air giving them directions.
Spirituality is kind of like that for me most of the time. I’m stuck at ground level, and it doesn’t feel like I’m getting anywhere, or making a difference. The difference between me and the farmer in the tractor is that I believe I have a spotter somewhere up there, and although I’m not getting the clearest of directions, if I can get a decent vantage point I can see what I’ve been doing.
Ooh, this is deep shit huh?
So this morning Norton and I are sitting at the kitchen table having a chat while the cats had their morning snack. Norton was reading the label on one of the empty tins. “Hey, did you know that cat backwards is tac?”
Normally I try to ignore Norton until I’ve had a coffee, but he managed to catch me before my guard was up. “Norton, say ‘focus’ backwards, but instead of starting with the “s” use the “f” life you would if you were saying it normally.”
It took him a few moments as he mumbled it out, and when he finally blurted it out, he looked shocked and then blushed. It shut him up for a couple of minutes. “John, you coming to church today?”
Rather than respond I tried to distract him. “Norton did I ever tell you about my buddy Tony? When we were kids he was the cleverest guy I’d ever met. Funniest guy I’ve ever known, and more curious than all the Clarence’s put together. Did you know he could actually speak backwards? When he first did it I thought it was gibberish, you know the kind you hear on that TBN network you like to watch when you think I’m not home. I actually recorded him once and when I played it backwards it made sense.”
He seemed to be paying attention so I thought I’d be clever. “Tell you what, if you can make me think going to church is better than staying at home and making a nice breakfast for me and the cats I’ll go with you today. What do you say?”
Norton sat there quietly. He was turning the can around in his hand. After a couple of minutes he put the can down. He looked me in the eye (only one, as Norton had an inability to focus on both eyes. He’d either look at my nose, or one of my eyes). “John, you sure love your breakfast don’t you?”
I nodded.
“and you know that Jesus loves you, right?”
I nodded again.
“Did you know that if you say Jesus backwards it sounds like sausage? If you love breakfast, and Jesus loves you, and if Jesus is part of your breakfast don’t you think he’d appreciate you coming to church after you’d had breakfast to say thank you?”
To be honest, I was kind of struck dumb. Norton wasn’t finished though. “It’s still pretty early, you have time to make a nice breakfast for both of us and we can still be on time for the service.”
And that’s how Norton got me to church today. I have to say it was nice to go, and as usual their coffee was excellent.
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