Sunday, September 11, 2011

We haven't been to church in several week, but last weekend was the tenth anniversary of September 11th, so we thought we should go.

BUT - we had a scheduling problem: our Corning grandson was in a baseball league that plays only on Sundays - 9:30 or 11:30 and we wanted to see him play. We'd had commitments every single Sunday for eons. It was time to see him play! Church service was at 10:30. This Sunday's game was at 11:30. So - a solution: - we'd go to the early 8 AM service at church, be finished in time to go out for breakfast, go home, let the dog out, change our clothes, and travel to Corning in time to see him play at 11:30.

All in all - we congratulated ourselves on a good job of scheduling! And arranging everything to fit in.

So -we set our alarm for 6AM. Which is later than I used to get up while teaching.

(Good heavens - it was still dark out!) but it gave us plenty of time, and so, off we went. The Early Worship Service was held in the Sanctuary. Same service as the later one, but the choir doesn't sing. There are much less people than the later service, so the congregation all sit on the left hand side - down in a direct line from the pulpit. There are two sides: with a large middle aisle separating the two, and two small aisles on either side. Our regular seats - about halfway up on the center aisle, left - were even available. Great! So that was good.

The sanctuary was nicely filled (taking into consideration it was only one side.) This was the first Sunday, after summer scheduling, for the regular worship service. In July and August there's only one service - 9:30. Now there's two: eight AM and ten-thirty.

So . . . . Sunday morning. 8 AM: Two rows in front of us,two older women (probably in their 80's, much older than us almost old folk) sat together. A third one came up, they moved over to made room for her, and she sat down. I overheard her saying how glad she was to have the regular church time back and that she'd missed seeing them, her friends. I thought - how nice.

The service was well planned around September eleventh: During the early announcements before the service began, we all applauded as Pastor Rhonda had all the First Responders stand up to be recognized. We noticed that there was a nurse sitting next to Paul and there were two physicians nearby. During the service, we had a green September 11th sheet insert . . . very nicely done. You could tell a lot of thought went into planning the service.

The green sheet took about a 10 minute in the middle of the service. Rhonda's sermon was next. Rhonda's been here two years and she's done a lot for the church. And she's very well-liked . . . But - to put it bluntly - her sermons put you to sleep. I think we all know ministers like that. (She is well-liked, but needs work on sermons.) Her sermon was short, Good ! - but even so, I could see Paul's eyes were closed. A little nudge. He was alerted.

We all stood for the next hymn.

The organist started the introduction.

In front of us, the three ladies began to get up. No ~ I mean the two outer ladies of the three got up, the one in the middle didn't and started to fall slowly over to the right on the pew pad. For a second, I thought she was sleeping, remember - the sermon had just ended, but quickly realized something was drastically wrong. As we began singing, her friends called out for help. We quickly moved out of the way to let the nurse out and she and one of the physicians, was there in a flash. Someone gave a jacket to put either over the lady, or under her head, 911 was called.

Throughout all this Paul and I were very close to everything. As far as I was concerned, we were close witnesses to someone's Passing On. The organist continued playing, I'm sure - doing Rhonda's bidding. As verse one finished, Rhonda came over to assess the situation and was able to tell everyone that the lady was now awake and able to communicate. Rhonda continued the service, which was 80% done. Not much time went by before four 911 people and equipment came in the middle aisle, to where the lady was lying two rows in front of us.

My thoughts are Rhonda did a great job. She remained calm. She reassured us all. She continued on with the service, possibly to not embarress Zelda, to calm us, and included her into prayers. She had us file out to the side so as not to bother the men working on her. By this time Zelda was very awake. We found out later that she was diabetic. That could have had a great deal to do with the situation. Probably did.

So how're things in your neck o' the woods? Here. . . .it's fine, thank you.