"Rumplestiltskin......................"

Yesterday morning I was one of two males among about fifteen adults shepherding the church school Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Grade students to Taft Theater in downtown Cincinnati where we would watch a presentation of “Beauty and the Beast”. The entire performance was commendable, but especially the ingenuity with which they altered, not only the set, but the characters as well. It was a little over an hour adventure in live fiction, one’s thoughts taken into a fairytale, life as it is replaced with song, comedy, and “love conquers all”. Seated in Chick-Fil-A afterwards, at a small table by myself with the grandson enjoying his friends across the aisle, the old man was scribbling, as usual, on a piece of paper when one of the teachers nearby inquired if it was perhaps a sermon Little did she know. I wonders sometimes how much “fiction” we all live in. Not that our existence, itself, isn’t real, but our perception of it, our idea of who and what we are within it, just how much truth is there in that? The world’s mindset, I understand, since those who express no belief in Christ really have no anchor for their journey other than their own reasoning. Some may well handle that better than others; but humanity, as it survives in its Adamic state, is like a computer possessing no security to protect it from all the potential of catching a virus. It speaks and acts out of its own vanity. Those of us who occupy the pews and pulpits of Christianity, according to our profession of faith, have supposedly gained access to divine input. We speak of having “found the way”; but, in reducing it to only “our version of the Book”, aren’t we, in fact, very close to being right back at square one? Granted: the Holy Ghost is given and made accessible for guidance, correction, and occasional encounters “through the veil”; yet if we define Him instead of the other way around, is not faith still a stumble down the path? If we cannot admit that the only difference between “us” and “them” is a “temporary osmosis”, points along the way that bring assurance of the Gospel, is it heresy to suggest our witness is more “once upon a time” than “Ye, I say unto thee”?.......