What I do all week. . .

I am such a creature of habit. I could tell you what I'll be doing all week in October. It will be pretty much the same thing I'm doing all week now.

SUNDAY: Mass at 9 AM, if I didn't go to the 5 PM on Saturday. I have one or another liturgical role at the 5:00 Mass seven months of the year, so most weekends it's the 5:00 Mass. Then I teach a Sunday school class, mostly junior-high age; class starts at 10:00 or whenever time everyone gets there, until 11:10, or whenever we're done.

I'm not terribly rule-bound. A denomination that I used to belong to was all about rules. Rules written. Rules unwritten. Rules made by anyone who confused his/her own opinion for rules. I think that one of the reasons I connect well with junior high kids is that I'm not a legalistic sort. Thus, no assigned seating. Sit wherever there's room and wherever your mood prompts you to sit. And I refuse to be the Cell Phone Gestapo. Just shut them off and don't make me compete with them. My lessons have not been about rules nearly as much as they've been about relationships. If you get through a year with me without knowing a lot more about rules and customs and suchlike, I'm OK with that. There's a time for that. But if you get through a year with me and are no closer to establishing your relationship with Jesus than you were at the start, then you have not failed. I have.

We're not afraid of experimentation in methods. So, the class session before a Christmas pageant was all music, and stories. We're experimenting with adding music and some closed-book-open-discussion time. I'm not sure that's working out so great.

I think that these kids and I connect well with each other. There's the rules-unbound thing (and, no, these youngsters have not abused that). But most people who know me well know that I've got a lot of junior high kid left in me. Both the good and the bad. Odd, because I remember the junior high years as being two of the toughest years of my life. I don't get it. But these young people and our class are one of the highlights of my week.

Then the rest of Sunday I think about no meetings, no organizations. I sit in a chair or lay on the couch looking for all the world like I'm stoned. "Rick - you in there?" "Huh?" If my boss ever saw that she'd send me for a random drug test the next day. (Hint: I'd pass.)

Long enough for one day. Thanks for hanging out.