Antiques Flee Market - 3 - Barbara Allan by Barbara Allan

Author:Barbara Allan
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2008-03-21T22:00:00+00:00

Sunday morning arrived, and even though I had slept for thirty-six hours, I still felt tired—if headache-free—when Mother traipsed in about nine o’clock in her house robe.

“And how are we today?” she asked.

I didn’t know how she was, but I felt okay, and told her so.

Mother said cheerily, “Good! Church is in an hour.” And she traipsed back out before I could protest.

Since she had gotten me those Popsicles, I guessed I could go along with her on this. So I sighed and headed for the shower.

A little backstory about how we landed at New Hope Church might be called for. Throughout much of my childhood, Mother and I would visit various churches in town, Mother looking for just the right heavenly fit for us earthly creatures. I do believe we tried them all: Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopalian, Baptist, Lutheran, Catholic, Jehovah’s Witness, and Mormon. We even went to synagogue (and, after a potluck dinner, we were ready to convert to Judaism for the matzoh ball soup alone).

Then Mother heard about Pastor John Tutor, who—when informed by his church elders that he would have to uproot his wife and two kids for a pulpit in another state—told those same powers-that-be to stick it. (In more Christian terms, I’m sure—send thy wishes to a holy place, maybe?) Anyway, Pastor Tutor resigned from said church, and formed a new one, taking half his old congregation with him.

For almost a month now, regular services at our church—located in a reconverted old fire station—had been suspended, ever since an ancient boiler had broken down and been deemed unrepairable, and a whole new heating system had had to be installed. Pastor Tutor, rather than close down the church for the duration of this upgrade, concocted a rather interesting, if unconventional, way of keeping his flock from wandering away to some other shepherd.

Remember the “flash mob” fad of a few years back? When text messaging on cell phones was a new phenomenon? People would contact their friends to meet at a certain place, and at a certain time, and then create a sudden crowd on a street corner (or wherever), only to disappear and confound everyone else in the immediate area.

Cell phone owners have, thankfully, found better uses for text messaging these days, but the prank did inspire Pastor Tutor to try something similar…however, our “flash mob” performs a not-so-random act of kindness, aiming to accomplish a good work before we disappear…supposedly.

I say “supposedly” because the first time we tried this, it was an unmitigated disaster—thanks, of course, to Mother. She had heard through one of her various, overripened grapevines that a widowed member of the church (name withheld) wanted her living room remodeled, but couldn’t afford it.

Taking a cue from the BBC show While You Were Out, our congregation swooped in when Mrs. Name Withheld was away for a weekend, and repainted and recovered and rearranged the room. Well, when Mrs. N.W. returned and saw what we had done, she threatened to sue the church unless

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