I Have Wanted To Do This So Many Times

I had to go to church today because it was my turn to greet. Another way to put this is to say I was a greeter. Or, as a young family member calls it, a Shaker because greeters are supposed to chase down unsuspecting churchgoers and shake their hands in order to make them feel either welcomed or stalked.

My point is, I spent around fifteen minutes (yeah, I was late and should have been there longer) standing by the door, staring dead on at it, so I saw everyone who came in. This explains how I came to see the teenage girl headed up to the loft with a book under her arm.

I have frequently wanted to bring a book to church. You know, just in case I had some free time before service or it took a while to get out of the building because the minister insisted on talking to everyone on the way out. I would have chosen something by Anne Lamott or maybe some kind of philosophical essay or better yet a magazine article about celebrity religious observance, since I might have a prayer of finishing that. At any rate, I would have chosen something I could have pretended was at least spiritual in case a deacon caught me with it.

But the young are fearless, and the girl I saw this morning was lugging a Stephen King novel to service with her.