April 5 – “I became … The Scatterer”

Happy Palm Sunday.  Here are, once again, preparing for the Seaside Online experience that begins at 10 this morning.  It still feels very strange not be gathering in Jamaica Beach there at the light for fellowship and worship together.  It’s even weirder not knowing how long this will continue.  Oh, well.  Maybe by the time this corona thing has passed I will have figured out the technology. 

I was out in the front yard yesterday.  I finished the pulling weeds segment of the lawn and had moved on to scattering the miracle three-in-one stuff that is supposed to kill weeds, kill fleas, and feed the grass.  It’s that stuff that you are only supposed to spread using one of those scatterer tools designed just for that purpose.  In fact, the bag warns you that you will probably die if you touch it with bare hands.  I wasn’t quite ready to meet my inevitable demise, but I didn’t have one of the miracle scatterer machines, either.  So I compromised.  I put of some old hospital gloves we had left over from Hurricane Ike.  Duly protected, I became … The Scatterer.  I guess it took a little longer, but the job got done.

I noticed that one of our neighbor families, a young Mom and Dad with three little preschoolers, was headed our direction.  The Mom and kids walk often while Dad is at work, so I have seen them many times before.  I went on the porch and grabbed the basket of palm crosses.  I placed it carefully on the rear bumper of the truck and went back to scattering.  When they got to our house, oldest son streaked by on his scooter, pausing but a moment to tell me “Hi.”  He and I have become quite the social distancing chums, even before the quarantine took effect.  As long as he stays on the sidewalk and I’m on the grass, we are good to go.  Mom shouted out her usual cheerful greeting.  Dad just smiled, but he was quite busy corralling the toddler who was insisting that it was time for her run into the street.  I invited them to take a palm cross from the basket.  In fact, I encouraged her to take one for each of the kids.  She obliged, and seemed genuinely surprised and happy.

I haven’t been out to the church yet to check on that basket, but a Seasider sent me a photo she had received from a friend in the neighborhood.  It was a nice tabletop display … with two of the crosses from the Seaside bucket.  They are still out there (and here on my porch as well) if you haven’t picked yours up yet.  Today’s the day.

Psalms 24:10 says, “Who is he, this King of Glory?  The Lord Almighty – he is the King of Glory.”

Father, watch over that young family who picked up some crosses.  Use this time to draw them closer to you and to each other.  Amen.