… Is Out There

By The Reverend Mrs. Silence DoGood

Dear Editor,

I was almost finished teaching Sunday school when it started. I was ending the class with a parable. It was a story about how squirrels store and hide food in the ground so that they can find nourishment during the bleak winter. I was encouraging my students to perform acts of kindness so that when life becomes difficult they will have stored up the moral character needed to handle life. Just like the squirrels we can store sustainable resources for the future.

But then my fifteen students stopped paying attention. Ranging in ages from twelve to fifteen they each took out a piece of paper and began drawing. I told them that they didn’t have to take notes but they paid no attention to me.

“What are you doing?”

I walked down the aisle and saw that each of them was drawing what looked like a space ship hovering above our Sunday school bus. The yellow school bus which is now part of our Church’s campus is the bus in which my deceased father-in-law The Reverend Mr. Silas Patriot DoGood started The First Church of God’s Love by preaching in it when it was out of service.

It is also the bus where Alice Bright Light and I held a séance some time ago. She is my best friend and an evidentiary medium. My deceased father-in-law appeared to answer a few questions that I had. The huge problem now is that he never left the bus. He communicates with me by writing on the three blackboards. Alice and I inadvertently opened up a portal to the other side which neither of us knows how to close.

My students also began to hum. I was in awe. This impromptu choir was revealing the most angelic melody in three part harmony. Its unearthly beauty filled me with happiness as tears of fulfillment rolled down my cheeks. But then the melody stopped; the drawings had already been completed.

“Why did you draw and sing?” I asked drying my tears.

“We had to” was the unanimous answer.

I didn’t let my students see that I was shaken. So I dismissed them until the next class which would be in two weeks. We meet biweekly.

As I entered the parsonage I was happy to see that my husband Willie was sitting at the kitchen table having a cup of tea. I had to tell him what just happened. The experience had filled me with an abundance of emotion. It was as though I was full. No not full … complete. I had never felt anything like that before. How is it possible that a melody sung by untrained-young students could affect me so? How could that melody make me whole?

I knew that Willie would be cross with me. He told me not to have the séance; he told me to let his father rest in peace. He is very unhappy that neither Alice nor I know how to close the portal which allows his father to still communicate with us. But I knew that Willie would be very interested in hearing about the angelic music because he has a Ph.D. in liturgical music and music is his life’s passion.

He was gentle. “You love Bach and Corelli. How could untrained kids make music that moved you?”

“It did. No music has ever affected me like what I heard a few moments ago. But I’m troubled. Where did it come from? What about the drawings? The space ships.”

“Oh no. Silence please. I’ll make you a cup of Chamomile. Please relax. Are you trying to tell me that the music was alien? Do you hear yourself? You won’t even watch the X Files.”

“But I know what I saw. I know what I heard and what I felt. It was extraordinary. Maybe the portal …”

“Are you saying that the portal to the other side that you and Alice opened is being used by aliens to communicate with us?”

“Yes. Maybe.”

Amen.

The Reverend Mrs. Silence DoGood

Senior Pastor

Executive Director

President

Chairman

Choir Master (part-time)

The First Church of God’s Love

By The Reverend Mrs. Silence DoGood

Dear Editor,

I was almost finished teaching Sunday school when it started. I was ending the class with a parable. It was a story about how squirrels store and hide food in the ground so that they can find nourishment during the bleak winter. I was encouraging my students to perform acts of kindness so that when life becomes difficult they will have stored up the moral character needed to handle life. Just like the squirrels we can store sustainable resources for the future.

But then my fifteen students stopped paying attention. Ranging in ages from twelve to fifteen they each took out a piece of paper and began drawing. I told them that they didn’t have to take notes but they paid no attention to me.

“What are you doing?”

I walked down the aisle and saw that each of them was drawing what looked like a space ship hovering above our Sunday school bus. The yellow school bus which is now part of our Church’s campus is the bus in which my deceased father-in-law The Reverend Mr. Silas Patriot DoGood started The First Church of God’s Love by preaching in it when it was out of service.

It is also the bus where Alice Bright Light and I held a séance some time ago. She is my best friend and an evidentiary medium. My deceased father-in-law appeared to answer a few questions that I had. The huge problem now is that he never left the bus. He communicates with me by writing on the three blackboards. Alice and I inadvertently opened up a portal to the other side which neither of us knows how to close.

My students also began to hum. I was in awe. This impromptu choir was revealing the most angelic melody in three part harmony. Its unearthly beauty filled me with happiness as tears of fulfillment rolled down my cheeks. But then the melody stopped; the drawings had already been completed.

“Why did you draw and sing?” I asked drying my tears.

“We had to” was the unanimous answer.

I didn’t let my students see that I was shaken. So I dismissed them until the next class which would be in two weeks. We meet biweekly.

As I entered the parsonage I was happy to see that my husband Willie was sitting at the kitchen table having a cup of tea. I had to tell him what just happened. The experience had filled me with an abundance of emotion. It was as though I was full. No not full … complete. I had never felt anything like that before. How is it possible that a melody sung by untrained-young students could affect me so? How could that melody make me whole?

I knew that Willie would be cross with me. He told me not to have the séance; he told me to let his father rest in peace. He is very unhappy that neither Alice nor I know how to close the portal which allows his father to still communicate with us. But I knew that Willie would be very interested in hearing about the angelic music because he has a Ph.D. in liturgical music and music is his life’s passion.

He was gentle. “You love Bach and Corelli. How could untrained kids make music that moved you?”

“It did. No music has ever affected me like what I heard a few moments ago. But I’m troubled. Where did it come from? What about the drawings? The space ships.”

“Oh no. Silence please. I’ll make you a cup of Chamomile. Please relax. Are you trying to tell me that the music was alien? Do you hear yourself? You won’t even watch the X Files.”

“But I know what I saw. I know what I heard and what I felt. It was extraordinary. Maybe the portal …”

“Are you saying that the portal to the other side that you and Alice opened is being used by aliens to communicate with us?”

“Yes. Maybe.”

Amen.

The Reverend Mrs. Silence DoGood

Senior Pastor

Executive Director

President

Chairman

Choir Master (part-time)

The First Church of God’s Love