My Sunday Feeling

One of the most gratifying, if not the most gratifying, aspect of being an occasional teacher is hearing from the guys that have endured me in the past.  D was one of my "History Boys" from American History for Juniors.  D sent me a message out of the blue a month or so ago.  He said that he was thinking about law school and wanted to get some lunch and bounce some stuff off of me.   I loved those guys.  Well, most of them.  D was one of my good ones.  

I told him I would be happy to discuss law school with him.  I actually felt an obligation to do so.  After all, we're talking law school. There's a soul in the balance.

"Can you believe that I'm a junior in college?" he said, shaking his head as we walked to the restaurant. "And that we're in a new decade."

" And 3 days into it we have tossed a missile into Iraq killing the #2 guy in the government of Iran. And the United Methodist Church has announced it is splitting up. That's a lot of action for 3 days," I replied in my typically wise and pedantic fashion dispensing perspective when none has been asked for..

This deal with the Methodists has been looming for 20 years easy.  The former Senior Pastor at my church predicted a schism 15 years ago over lunch.  I thought that he was exaggerating.  To my mind the word "schism" connotes standing in the snow while nailing stuff to the door of a church or executing an Archbishop or something.  

I guess technically schisms are what Baptist churches have always done whenever half of First Baptist leaves to form Second Baptist. (You ever notice that there are no Third Baptist Churches? Or Third But Who's Counting Baptist Churches?)   They just never referred to it in those terms.  I guess I deluded myself into thinking that the Methodists weren't capable of something that, well, unpleasant.  Besides, Frank Zappa once said that WWIII would never start in Los Angeles because "there's too much real estate involved."  Same deal with the Methodists.  I mean, who would wind up with the Perkins School of Theology? And that's just one example.  

I guess we are fixing to find out.

I have never been anything but a Methodist in my entire life. I was baptized in the Mabelvale United Methodist Church along with my parents and brothers.  Even my Baptist Mom.  I attended a Methodist college.  My father checked out my Senior year at Hendrix.  If it weren't for the Methodist Student Loan Program I couldn't have paid for law school.  I got married in Greene Chapel at Hendrix.  To a Deacon in the United Methodist Church.

You get my drift.

So why are the Wesleyans splitting the sheets?  Over the status of folks that engage in what the Book of Discipline inanely refers to as "the practice of homosexuality."  Basically.  As I appreciate it, it's a little more complicated than that if no reason other than the fact that Methodists can't do anything except by committee which takes awhile.  But it's not much more complicated than that as a matter of etiology.  

One of my more theologically inclined Catholic friends is watching all of this with interest.  His message today was " My condolences, friend.  Divorce is hard, even if both parties deem it the only positive step."

There's no doubt about that.  And there's also no doubt that the old Methodist church that pretty much raised me my whole life, the one in which reason and doing "all the good you can" prevailed, the one that married me and buried my parents, stands an outside chance of being no more. Or at least has been gravely wounded.  That's hard and that's sad.  

And so I don't know what I'm going to do. As far as I can glean from what little I've read, the "conservatives"-conservative schismatics, right?- get to leave and form their own club along with a parting gift of 25 million bucks.  

Fine with me.  Trust me on this one. Their music is really gonna suck. 

The final vote on who lands where and who gets what isn't scheduled until May or so. So there's plenty of time to get this situation wrapped around the axle even worse than it is. It's almost enough to put a fellow off religion.  

D and I had a good talk over lunch.  He said that he got together with some of the other History Boys while he was in town this Christmas.  They pretty much viewed the highlight of my time with them to be the entire day I spent on Aaron Burr. Hey, you got to admire anybody that almost got away with fixing a Presidential election, survived a duel and tried to take over the State of Louisiana.   As for myself I am partial to the time I sang the "Star Spangled Banner" in class using the original dirty (for those times) text.  

The History Boys' parents sure got their tuition money's worth with me, huh?

D will be fine.  He only knows what he knows.  And he knows that he doesn't know much.  Which is pretty good insight for any young person starting out.

As we left I told him that I hoped that the next decade finds him happily practicing law.  Or whatever he winds up doing.  And I hope that I'm still around to see how he and all of the History Boys turn out.  

"I just hope there is another decade," he said.

"That's all you can do," I said.

His face betrayed no expression as he held up his crossed fingers.

"How's that?" he asked.

"I'll take it. Planning is overrated."

After all, we haven't gotten a solid week behind us in this new decade and the United States has whacked a member of a foreign government while the Methodists whacked themselves.

What the hell. I'm keeping mine crossed too.