All Saints and other Sinners, too....

..... working backwards

Yesterday afternoon we had #2 stepson over (he was in town for the weekend) to celebrate his 21st birthday. Grandma and Grandpa came over; I put lasagne in the oven and they brought birthday cake. Also, I tossed up a bag salad; this is the type of entertaining I can muster up after church on Sunday. We kept calling the #1 stepson on his cell phone to let him know that the lasagne was just about ready. But his phone kept ringing and ringing; as it turned out, he slept all afternoon after a really exhausting Halloween party. He did turn up to eat leftovers in the early evening, after everyone else had gone home.

Right after church, I got together at a local coffee shop for a "confirmation reunion" with some of the girls from my confirmation class two years ago. Four out of six of them showed up. We drank coffee, cocoa, and caramel lattes and caught up: one of the girls is going to a TEC (Teens Encounter Christ) event this weekend; another has a part-time job at the Mall of America now. We promised to stop by. They all told me that the best way to keep in touch is by cell phone.

I had the children's message for our All Saints' worship yesterday. I cut out construction paper stars and prepared to tell the children about the Saints being the "stars" of the church -- and how they were stars, too. When I called the Kindergarteners up to the front, there was a cry from the back of the church. "All, right, how about 4 year olds too?" The little girl stopped crying and came to the chancel steps with her brother. So when I gave them each a star, I called them, "St. Molly," "St. Anya,", "St. Anthony." Stars of the church, letting their lights shine.

Yesterday I had the first of two Bible Classes with third graders and their parents. 9 children and their parents looked up Old Testament verses and learned a little bit about the Library of books that is the Bible. We have one more class, in two weeks, and then everyone gets to take home their Bible.

This class is still, after ten years, one of the most fun things I do. It is fun to watch the students and their parents look up passages together. It is fun for them to learn the "Books of the Old Testament" song. It is fun to play the Bible games we have created for them to play. It is also so fun to watch how interested the parents are in in some of these "Bible facts." It really is "Bible 101."

Later on, after stopping in at a wedding reception, we stopped in at Barnes and Noble. We've been going to the Library more and more for books. But we still haven't totally given up our bookstore habit. We buy a lot less,though. I was considering a specific Bible (more on that later) as a gift, and perusing a copy of The Predator State, by James Galbraith. I've been reading a little of the latter book every time we go in for coffee and window-shopping. I read a review in The New York Times a couple of weeks ago; it was critical, but provocative. As for me, I know I'm not an economist, but some of the things that Mr. Galbraith is saying make a lot of sense to me. He writes that the changes in the laws since the 1980s actually discouraged business executives from re-investing in their own companies, and encouraged them to cash in for private enrichment, that seems to me exactly what has been happening.

As we left the bookstore cafe, a man stopped us and asked me about the book I was reading. His name is Luis, and my husband says that he is also a regular at the bookstore. We seem to have similar taste in literature. He was reading The History of Money, by Jack Weatherford, a book my husband just got out of the library.

Somehow, we all have more interest in economics, lately.