Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

The Blame Game

I looked outside this morning and snow covered the ground. Winter is coming to Wisconsin.

While in Vietnam I had a religious experience. I terminated my last negotiating session with God and sold out. I experienced a warm glow and felt the presence of the spirit inside me. This is my lead in to Spirits and it is also my lead out. Anybody who claims there's no such thing has never looked at a child on Christmas morning or watched the NFL football players on Thursday Night Football. Science discounts Spirits because they can’t see, hear or touch them but we all know they‘re out there.

Despite being a believer, I find it hard to go to Church on Sunday. I don’t know what it is, I just do. My stomach churns in the same way it used to when it was time to go to school. School was good for me and so is going to church but I've always hated walking through that door. It requires an extreme exercise of will to go and frequently I find excuses for being somewhere else. Like going to “Swap Meets” on Sunday with my flying friends. Linda is a great motivator with that evil look when she inquires, “Well, are we going to church?”

On Sunday we went and on the drive over I was thinking about Personal Responsibility. Sometimes I go to the bar and in all my years have never heard anybody say, "The reason my life is so screwed up is because I made a mess of it." The cause is always a neighbor, the government, a spouse, taxes, the Education System... you name it, if they have a woe, some one or something else is always behind it.

About halfway through the service a new Sunday School teacher did “Time To Share,” and called the kids up to read a Bible Story. It was about Adam and Eve and I yawned, closed my eyes and was about to devote myself to forty winks of prayer. Still, it's always fun to watch the kids being paraded up front and the looks on the boys faces who don’t want to participate. The teacher started reading from this story book and got to the part where God finds them both ashamed about their nakedness. Her reading was very animated.

God to Adam: "Why are you ashamed? Did you eat from the fruit of the tree I told you not to partake from?"

Adam: It was that woman you gave me. She made me do it.”

I began to chuckle because it reminded me of the very thoughts I entertained earlier. I suddenly realized that Adam must have been from Wisconsin. It must have been louder than I intended because Linda jabbed me in the ribs. Even with my hearing aids turned down I knew there was total silence in the church. I tried stopping, but my chortle got worse. The Sunday School teacher looked up briefly and continued.

God To Eve: "Did you partake of the forbidden fruit and give it to Adam?"

Eve: "The Serpent made me do it."

A mild wave of hysteria took hold and the sound of it reverberated inside the sanctuary.

The Sunday School teacher looked up, annoyed and suddenly got it.

“Does any of this sound familiar?” she asked innocently.

The congregation began to chuckle.

Linda gave me a dirty look and flashed a pasty smile. It didn't amuse her, to discover that the "Blame Game" had been around for a long time. She was mad at me.

I’m closing in on fifty years of marriage and I still don’t understand that woman.