The Beans

I was interviewed yesterday.

No. Not what you're thinking. And if it WAS what you are thinking, I probably would not be blogging it.

And no. I was not interviewed by the media, either. Why would you even think that?

I was sitting in my office, absentmindedly eating lunch while casually perusing an adult ed lesson plan when I heard voices out in the hallway. My clergy pals had left the building already, I had seen an elder drop something off for the Office Admin and leave, and the Rat Man had finished for the day, so I had no idea who it could be.

Before I knew it, with the next-to-last bite of my turkey on whole wheat still being chewed, the Office Admin escorts two people into my office. Lets call them "June"and "The Beav". They walk right over to my couch and make themselves comfortable, meanwhile I am hastily rearranging my lunch remnants. (I have a very luxuriously inviting couch. I'll bet if you wandered into my office, you'd be drawn to it, too. People are always telling me, "What a great couch!")

June and Beav are looking around the office, as if they are trying to get the lay of it. I swallow, slide my chair over and offer my hand, "I'm Cheesehead. What can I do for you?"

Many people who wander in from the parking lot unnanounced are looking for help of some kind, usually cash, which I never give, offering instead referrals to, and help contacting, people who can offer more sustained and systemic assistance. I'll give a few gallons of gas or a grocery card in a pinch. I was secretly kicking myself for not replenishing my gas-card supply as June and Beav sat familiarizing themselves with my office.

"We're looking for a church. We had a church, but...we're looking for a new one. I'm checking out churches in the area, taking a look at the buildings and meeting the pastors. I don't want to drag my husband around to too many churches, so I'm narrowing the list to one or two before I bring him anywhere."

She then tells me a little bit about her spouse's history with the church, and when I ask her about her journey, she is strangely vague. Meanwhile Beav is fidgeting like crazy. I guess him to be about 7 or 8 years old. I wonder if he really needs the bathroom, so I turn my attention to him and ask if there's anything I can do for him.

"Are we gonna spill the beans, mom?" he asks, looking at his mother and not me.

Okay. Now they have my full attention!

June asks Beav to please be quiet and asks for a tour of the sanctuary. I am not unaccustomed to this request. Many people just drive by, see my car in the parking lot, and ask to see the sanctuary. I oblige them and we stand in the sanctuary, admiring the midday light streaming in through the stained glass. Jue begins asking about the architecture, the pews, the lights. She then asks for the proper names for things: the pulpit, the font, the table, the chancel. Beav is fascinated by the pew envelopes for visitors, the worship bags for children, the clipboards by the bulletin board. He runs up to the balcony, asking questions about the rose window. He runs back down and begins stacking pew Bibles into random piles. It is as though he is terribly famliiar with the place. And yet his mother seems as if she has not spent a lot of time inside churches.

She begins asking about the similarities between our denomination and another one with whom we are in full communion. She wants to know who are the decision makers in the church. I give her a very brief polity and theology lesson.

Suddenly, she is finished checking out the sanctuary, and she begins walking back to my office. I follow her, after asking the Beav if he didn't want to come along. For a very brief, scary moment, I imagine that she has come here to drop off her son and leave without him.

But that did not happen.

Instead, Beav eventually followed us, and as we got settled back in the office, asked, "When are we going to talk about grandma?"

I look him in the eye and ask, "Is there something you would like to tell me about your grandma?"

Beav looks at his mother. She looks back. She speaks: "We're here because my son wants to be baptized."

I ask Beav, "Is that right? Tell me about why you want to be baptized."

"I don't know. I just do."

That sounds about right to me for a seven-year-old, so I don't press him any further. I ask June, "Do you wish for your son to be baptized?"

"Only in the right church. It has to be the right church. I have to check it out thoroughly first."

I reiterate what I have said several times already, that she and her family are welcome to come back when "the church" is here, since neither the building nor I am "the church", but the worshipping community is. I talk a little about the meaning of baptism in our tradition, and the connectional nature of the church. I encourage them to come several times before making any important decisions.

But it is clear that the interview is over.

They thank me for my time, shake my hand, and rise to leave. I walk them to the door, and as I am closing it behind them I hear Beav say "Aren't you proud of me, Mom? I didn't spill the beans."

I still don't know what the beans are. But I'm going to be wondering about them for days. I'm guessing at least one of them is named "grandma".