Sunday Story Time
Dec. 8th, 2013 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valarltdI like holidays in my stories, so on Sundays, you'll get a bit of holiday goodness here.
This week, it's Glad Hands. (and if the pageant at St. Andrew's in billings looks a lot like it did a couple years at Red Bridge United Methodist...ah well)
Seven enjoyed the late-night service more than he’d expected. As Chuck had said it would be, it was mostly kids and singing. He sat beside Chuck and noticed Chuck wrapped his arm around his shoulders the same way Charles did Linda. The lights of
the sanctuary went down and the lights up on the dais came up on a miniature Holy Family.
The sleepy little Mary couldn’t have been more than four, looking very solemn in her blue gown and white veil. Her Joseph was no older in a too-large brown bathrobe. They sang a duet version of ‘Away in a Manger’, Joseph yawning hugely at the end.
The grade school kids were an angel chorus singing ‘Joy to the World’. The shepherds were high school kids who came in from the sides, mumbling their way through the high, extended notes of ‘Angels We Have Heard on High’. The men’s trio sent shivers down Seven’s spine as they walked down the main aisle to all five verses of ‘We Three Kings’. Each king’s voice was progressively lower and he could feel the myrrh king’s voice in his bones.
The pageant was much better than the one he’d been in one year. He’d been a shepherd with no lines, basically moving scenery. And the Sunday school teacher had wielded a wicked ruler on anyone she saw dozing during the rehearsals. Fortunately, she hadn’t been able to reach him when he fell asleep during the performance, only to be actually startled awake by the angels’ song.
They cleared the pageant away, the frankincense-bearing king carrying the now-drowsing Mary off the dais to sit in the first row. Mother Vivian read the Christmas Story from Luke, which Seven knew by heart. They went home to cold roast beef,
potato salad and a log-roll cake that one of Linda’s coworkers had given her.
This week, it's Glad Hands. (and if the pageant at St. Andrew's in billings looks a lot like it did a couple years at Red Bridge United Methodist...ah well)
Seven enjoyed the late-night service more than he’d expected. As Chuck had said it would be, it was mostly kids and singing. He sat beside Chuck and noticed Chuck wrapped his arm around his shoulders the same way Charles did Linda. The lights of
the sanctuary went down and the lights up on the dais came up on a miniature Holy Family.
The sleepy little Mary couldn’t have been more than four, looking very solemn in her blue gown and white veil. Her Joseph was no older in a too-large brown bathrobe. They sang a duet version of ‘Away in a Manger’, Joseph yawning hugely at the end.
The grade school kids were an angel chorus singing ‘Joy to the World’. The shepherds were high school kids who came in from the sides, mumbling their way through the high, extended notes of ‘Angels We Have Heard on High’. The men’s trio sent shivers down Seven’s spine as they walked down the main aisle to all five verses of ‘We Three Kings’. Each king’s voice was progressively lower and he could feel the myrrh king’s voice in his bones.
The pageant was much better than the one he’d been in one year. He’d been a shepherd with no lines, basically moving scenery. And the Sunday school teacher had wielded a wicked ruler on anyone she saw dozing during the rehearsals. Fortunately, she hadn’t been able to reach him when he fell asleep during the performance, only to be actually startled awake by the angels’ song.
They cleared the pageant away, the frankincense-bearing king carrying the now-drowsing Mary off the dais to sit in the first row. Mother Vivian read the Christmas Story from Luke, which Seven knew by heart. They went home to cold roast beef,
potato salad and a log-roll cake that one of Linda’s coworkers had given her.
