Good Today

I ask the boys the same question almost every day, over bowls of applesauce at the kitchen counter or aimed toward the backseat on the way home from another adventure: Where did you find good today?

On Sunday, Tolliver asked to sit with me in the sanctuary.  He spent the first part of the service stomping around between pews, almost-yelling But I promise to be quiet! while I buried my head in my River City Leather bag, half hiding crimson cheeks but mostly searching desperately for another lollipop.

I haven't figured out where God is when bad things happen, and I feel fairly certain he was not around when our faulty genes paired up, but I do recognize him in good.  And I want the boys to see all the good too.

Quite a few parishioners came up to me after church and said they enjoyed hearing Tollie's laughter.  And his footsteps.  And his "promises."  Even later Sunday evening, more people made it a point to mention how glad they were to have him at church, to have him doing church.

Several weeks ago the Presbyterian General Assembly voted to reword the church's definition of marriage to be between "two people."

And that's just it, why I get up and get us all dressed and go some Sundays, because it feels like church when everyone is included.

I read the query somewhere and reworded it just a bit, because I want to leave the boys plenty of space to find their own connections between God and good, but I ask them just the same.  I want them to be kind and to show love and to see good.  Or to make it.