January 9, 2002

When in church, I of course follow the litany faithfully and attentively. But during the pauses, I confess, my attention may drift to the children in the room. The Sunday before Christmas belonged to Sarah. The youngest of three, she is endlessly inventive, and will either be the Madame Curie of her generation or something more sinister. On this holiday morning, she wore a festive headband with a one-inch buzz of ruby tinsel, and she wore it like a crown.

You or I, to be sure, would have left it at that. It's called a headband; where else could it go? But in the middle of the service, Sarah thought to try it as a belt, snapping it around her waist and pondering its effect. I returned to the service for a response or two, and when next I looked over the top of my bulletin, the ruby headband had become a brassiere. My guess is that even in the most liberal Lutheran churches, sparkling red brassieres are not commonplace. Sarah's older sister probably guessed at this as well, because the moment she saw the reconsidered headband, her hand shot out and swept it out of view. Sarah glared and silently demanded the return of the sparkling red headband. But it was the Sabbath, and the Court of Appeals was closed.

In response, Stephen Sloan Thomas commented:

"Ah. Perfect.

"My 89 year old father actually calls around to the families he keeps an eye on to learn of their church attendance plans. If they say they're going, we go, and if they're present he's alert and watches their children. If they don't show, he dozes, interrupted only by my nudging if he begins to snore or for standing for hymns. If they say they're not going, we don't go.

"In 1964, my father took me to what so far as I know was the last service ever conducted in Welsh in an American Church. That was in the Welsh Church of Powell, South Dakota, now a ghost town. I was the only person there who to my 15 year old eyes didn't look ancient, and, self-absorbed, I mistook the solemn grief of the occasion for a coldness.

"In 1977 by happenstance I watched the Skye Presbyterian ministers throw themselves in the path of the first ferry ever to cross from the mainland to the Isle of Skye on a Sunday.

"Such are the sights along what Galway Kinnell called 'That Avenue Bearing the Name of Christ into the New World.' "