By The Reverend Mrs. Silence DoGood<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dear Editor,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My mother-in-law Teresa lectured me. It was more like an emotional scolding. That was her first reaction when I told her that her departed husband the Reverend Mr. Silas Patriot DoGood appeared at a s\u00e9ance that Alice Bright Light and I held. We held the s\u00e9ance to answer questions about my future as Senior Pastor of the First Church of God\u2019s Love which my father-in-law founded. It was the first and only s\u00e9ance that Alice and I held.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Teresa emphatically explained that there was a natural and spiritual order in life that has to be respected. She explained that my main function as head of the Church that her late husband founded was to educate, preserve and live that spiritual order. She thought that what I did was sacrilegious and sinful. I violated one of the basic principles of life. \u201dYou have no right to interfere with nature. There are two worlds and they should never meet.\u201d I felt truly penitent as she spoke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But then there was her surprise-second reaction. As I was leaving and she was escorting me to the door she said \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you invite me?\u201d There it was. She expressed a curiosity as potent as the scolding. She expressed the hidden quest in all of us to explore what lies beyond the nature that we know. And her quest for more understanding of the forbidden continues to grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We held the s\u00e9ance in the Sunday school bus because it was where Reverend Silas first preached. The bus was originally an out of service bus on his aunt\u2019s property when he restored it, parked it on the side of a rural road and turned it into his first Church. It then was used for storage at a nearby summer camp when I found it and turned it into our Sunday school classroom. Alice thought that Reverend Silas would want to return to the site where he founded his Church. She was right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the s\u00e9ance as the Reverend Silas spoke through Alice he said \u201cI will stay with you.\u201d At that time neither Alice nor I understood what he meant. But we now know. He never left the Sunday school bus. He writes messages on its three blackboards. He first communicated with me about my future. Then he told us about Julian a farmhand who recently started working for a major corn farmer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although I tried to keep Reverend Silas\u2019s blackboard messages confidential, there was no way to keep them from my parishioners. Then the rural farming community of Halo, PA learned of them. Now Teresa is frustrated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhy doesn\u2019t he write me a message? I miss him so much. He\u2019s my husband.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure he loves and misses you too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI helped him create and run the Church. Your husband Willie is our son.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cReverend Silas loves you. You know that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI want to spend time with him in the bus. Maybe when I\u2019m there he will write to me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe bus is only used as our Sunday school classroom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI want to be with Silas. I have a right to be in the bus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I discussed Teresa\u2019s desire to be in bus with Willie. He was still annoyed that I had held the s\u00e9ance but was less so over time. He understood his mother\u2019s desire to be close to her departed husband. So he thought we should let her spend time there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I can see the Sunday school bus from my kitchen at the parsonage. Several days a week Teresa sits silently in the bus crocheting. She waits. She is waiting to be told that she is still loved. We all have a human need to be loved for it sanctions our lives. The need is strong. And it doesn\u2019t matter that we have just been kissed. We wait for the next one. She waits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My sermon this Sunday will be about love. Not hearing it but saying it. We each have the power to sanction our loved ones by saying \u201cI love you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Reverend Mrs. Silence DoGood<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Senior Pastor<\/p>\n\n\n\n Executive Director<\/p>\n\n\n\n President<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chairman<\/p>\n\n\n\n Choir Master (part-time)<\/p>\n\n\n\n First Church of The God\u2019s Love<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By The Reverend Mrs. Silence DoGood Dear Editor, My mother-in-law Teresa lectured me. It was more like an emotional scolding. That was her first reaction… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,33,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","category-mrs-dogood","category-popular"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1764"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1765,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1764\/revisions\/1765"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodstuffconnections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}