May 12, 2005

Bricks

A captionless cartoon depicts a mason seated beside a brick wall he’s laying. He’s taking a lunch break. The wall is up to about twenty inches high. He has set his drink on top of the wall. The liquid in the glass is clearly not level.

Reading daily the morning office sometimes just bams along, rather like building a brick wall. Once in a while, I’m surprised, maybe somewhat like the brick mason. The frequent typo in the Church Hymnal Corporation’s not-so-carefully proofed rendition of the Good Book. An heretofore overlooked entry in the Book of Common Prayer. And, when I’m lucky and sufficiently awake, an insight. Some unnerving, some just nerving.

In Luke’s accounting of the apostles’ activities one morning, he made this observation: “Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new” (Acts 17.21).

These fellows were red meat for Paul. He was always telling something new. We churchers have got some of the same stuff, but the way things look with our constant distractions and all, we’re more than likely just not leveling with it.

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