Should I stay or should I go?

Tonight I tried the other Wednesday night bible study in lieu of missing it until next Spring.  After all, I was the one who suggested the topic.  Ought I not to attend the teaching? 

This one is held in the basement of the church, and as I suspected, heat was not a problem.  In fact, there was none!  I was so cold at time, I bent over my thighs to try and warm my core more.  Of course, I can always dress warmer or bring a blanket, whereas the heat at the congregation president's home makes me ill.  It is his home and he is older and is in need of warmth.  I cannot ask him to accomodate me.

Still, I wonder about tonight.

First the good:  I now have 8 more hymns and one piece of the Divine Service Liturgy 5!

I had the most wonderful idea of using Ask the Pastor, providing there were no other people who wanted to ask questions, to have Pastor use the time to sing me hymns into his recording gizmo.  He did!  Sunday, for Reformation, we are doing a hymn-filled liturgy.  Back in olden times, Luther wrote hymns in German so that his flock could learn the liturgy since few of them knew Latin.  So, we are singing 12 hymns.  I knew none of them.  Now, after listening to his recordings for the past few hours, I can confidently sing 5 of the ones I received tonight.  Would it be absolutely greedy of me to ask Pastor to record the other 3 hymns on Saturday so that I could sing the whole service?

One other person (Pizza Man's sister) had come early, so she sang along with Pastor, not caring that he was making me recordings.  So sweet is it to hear her in the background.  At one point, she noted that perhaps we should do this more.  I heartily agree!  Of course, I would still be mostly listening, but tonight I found the hymns being sung round me to be a blessed balm.

[Sam has been singing along with Pastor this whole evening.  It is true:  all creation praises the Creator!]

I would post one or two so that you might share in the blessing, but Pastor expressly forbid my public dissemination of his recordings.   I don't blame him and, truly, do you know of another Pastor who would sing a capella, into a digital recorder no less, at the drop of a hat to accommodate his parishioner's longing to learn Lutheran hymns?  Such riches God gives me.

Now the bad:  They only got through one question.

Again!

I feel I derailed the bible study and kept us exploring a topic Pastor has already tried rather valiantly to teach me.  In part, forgiveness.  In part, accountability.  Some of the discussion was rather helpful to more than just I.  In one of those humbling reminders of God's sovereignty, the question on anger caught one man by surprise.  Something happened just before time to leave that made him angry.  He said he had a choice:  come to bible study and pray or stay and resolve the problem.  When he read the question he saw that really he was to come to bible study and pray and resolve the problem.  I almost think that his sharing that was enough of a lesson for me to ponder for the rest of the week.  For someone who speaks Spanish far better than English, he could not have been more eloquent.

However, I did feel the interloper.  The Alexandria person sneaking into the Vienna study and then...all learning came to a crashing halt.

SIGH.