the lord's day

It was a good and full Sunday. It began as I ate a quiet breakfast and listened to "Speaking of Faith" on NPR. The topic today was on autism; I recalled a Confirmation Class in which two, perhaps three of the boys had some form of autism; it was both challenging and heartbreaking, not in a judgmental posture toward them but in the realization of how hard it is to be different in a mainstreamed world. Then to church; in the 8:30 service I was the celebrant; one of our pastors preached on the gospel for today, linking it to "Children's Sabbath Sunday". I then spoke to a group of adults about Leighton Ford's The Attentive Life (highly recommended). Then I met a close friend for lunch and we went to see the Carolina Panthers. We absolutely took it to the New Orleans Saints. It was a cold, fall day, and a glorious afternoon to watch NFL football. I then went back to the church and hung out at the well-attended Fall Festival for children and their families. And then my wife and I went to Temple Israel, for the first of four evenings of Interfaith Bible Study, bringing together our two congregations; there we ran into a couple who are active in the Temple, whose daughter played high school sports with our younger daughter. It was a nice reunion. Rabbi Murray led a lively discussion of Ezekiel 1; without this prophecy, he insisted, there would be no Judaism and no Christianity. Murray seemed to answer every question with another question, and of course this reminded me of another rabbi, one we met in the gospel lection for today---"Should we pay taxes?" he was asked. "Whose face is on the coin?", he responded.