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Monday, July 18, 2005
Howdy, Buckaroos
Joanne and I spent all last week loafing about luxurianty, most of it incognito right in our own back yard.
We did get away for 2 secluded days and nights at Stinson Beach, to celebrate our 43rd(!) wedding anniversary. How sweet it was when a woman came over to our dinner table on that auspicious evening to exclaim, "You are such a cute couple! I've got to tell my boyfriend that romance is really not out of fashion for us 50ish folks."
First of all, I didn't realize we were being all that romantic. And I think you already know the second of all. Ah well....
So now I'm back in the saddle. Almost literally. Cuz all this week I'm a senior ranch-hand at the Circle G Ranch.
That's our Vacation Bible School, with 45 little buckaroos and buckarettes signed up. Bales of hay and other ranch-style paraphernalia here and there nicely set the week's theme.
Since it's Vacation Bible School, can you guess what/who the "G" stands for? Yup, our great big Pardner In The Sky.
I remember my own first experience of VBS.
We carpooled across my part of Newark, NJ -- a handful of us from my neighborhood Sunday school -- to join kids from what seemed like 20 other churches. Probably 3 or 4.
Anyway, I'd never felt so much churchly energy before.
We threw ourselves into group singing, Bible stories, crafts, and snacks. And, wow, all those girls! I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.
All these years later I'm so grateful for the way VBS introduced me to a church that existed beyond my little congregation. Of course, I knew in my head that was the way things are. But now I saw and felt it for myself -- in living color and surround sound.
Imagine the encouragement one of this week's kids will have next September, when she recognizes a new classmate as that boy or girl who wore the same team shirt all this week, worked on the same crafts project, and co-starred in the same skit at Friday night's closing celebration.
In a culture where God-talk is sometimes scoffed at if not forbidden, how good it is to know you belong to an extended family of faith. Of people who understand how and why you live the best you can for the glory of God. Who want with you to spread around God's kind of love. And peace. And hope.
It's life-changingly wonderful to know those good things are not yet out of fashion, for folks of any age.
Circle G Ranch. Yahoo!
posted by Jack Buckley at
11:41 AM
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