Misfigured

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 Misfigured  

Uncle Albert and I were both under the mistaken impression that this was Transfiguration Sunday, so we decided to skip church. But we were both up very early: Uncle A was already at the kitchen table with his tattered copy of La Rochefoucauld when I came down. That was shortly after six.

     I started the coffee pot and sat down opposite him. “What’s the word from the wise?” I asked.

     “What I’m looking at right now,” he said: “‘Les vieux fous sont plus fous que les jeunes.’ ‘Old fools are more fools than young fools.’ I’m not sure I agree.”

     “Hmmm,” I said, having nothing else to say. Then, “Since we’re up – speaking of foolishness . . . Since we’re up, we might as well go to church. Grit our teeth, when Jesus starts glowing.”

     Roz padded in just then, shaking her head: “There’s a seven-thirty service at your pal’s Lutheran church – I saw in yesterday’s paper. Maybe they’ll make less of it than the Episcopalians.”

     “Couldn’t make more of it,” Uncle Albert said, “I don’t think.”

Kurt Waldheim in the rain.

So, we decided we’d do that. I hadn’t seen Axel Sundstrøm in ages, I realized. But I didn’t see him this morning either; apparently he’s on vacation.

     Presiding in his place was Kurt Waldheim, not the fascist former U.N. general secretary but the almost equally ancient pastor emeritus of Grace Lutheran, who did not so much preach as free associate on the passage from the sermon on the mount, the antitheses: “You have heard . . . but I say . . . .” About adultery he practically cackled: “‘But I say to you that anyone who looks at a woman with lust in his heart has already committed adultery.’ Jesus was obviously speaking to a younger crowd. At my age lust is like a speck in the eye – you can’t get it out, it stays there.”

We were home in time to watch almost all of the Burnley-Chelsea match, a good one with a good result. Then we had our Sunday morning breakfast: croissants with marmalade, a cheese-eggs-sausage medley, apple sauce, juice, and more coffee. Sunday is the one day of the week I am allowed three cups of coffee.

I looked up Transfiguration Sunday; it’s the 26th, we were three Sundays off.

     This Sunday as morning becomes afternoon it begins to rain.

02.12.17