Love Song (prequel)

Churches that I work for have often sent me to various conferences.  Most of them are fairly terrible, and this one was no exception.  After the usual barrage of bad music and poor speakers, we had a break to meet other people.  I was in attendance with a senior pastor.  As we looked across the room, he spotted another pastor that he knew. 

“Kurt, I’m going to go say hello to my friend over there.”

I looked at the man across the room and was shocked to recognize him. 

“You aren’t going to believe this,” I said.  “I know him too.  He won’t remember me.  He was my Sunday School teacher in 9th grade.  He kicked me out of class for saying that Jesus was a communist.”

“Oh, I’m definitely going to ask him if he knows you.”

He walked across the room and began to chat with his friend.  A few minutes later, he came back.

“Did he remember me?”  I asked.

“Oh, yes.  Right away.”

“Well, what did he say.”

“I said, ‘Hey, I think you know my music director.’ and I pointed you out.  He said, ‘Oh yeah.  I know him.  I kicked him out of Sunday School class when he was in 9th grade because he said Jesus was a communist.’”

I do love that story, and it put me in mind of the terrible time when I made (and simultaneously lost) an intimate connection with a girl over Eliot’s “Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

To be continued…