Satan as Insect

Essentially this blog is place to store observations and questions and opinions about my experience as church pianist for a Lutheran Church in Holly Springs MS. I've only mentioned the blog to two people and, as far as I know, only one of them occasionally stops by. I'm not looking for a fight. This blog, like SITC, should be viewed as an open diary.


Some new notions to record.

The devil is like a fly. As explained in yesterday's sermon, he "buzzes around you looking for a spot on your body that's hard for you to reach and lands there to annoy you." The comparison was interesting because it differs from my experience with flies. In my experience, they either land on my food (and I swat them away) or they land on my leg/arm/face/thigh/etc. (and I swat them away) or they buzz lazily without ever landing and frustrate my attempts to swat them.

I'm the Son of God...mum's the word. In a recent Gospel reading from Matthew 16:13-20, Jesus asks his disciples "Who do people say I am?" After they answer, he breaks it down and tells them who he is and what he plans and then "...he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ." Why the secrecy? As explained by the pastor, "He knew that if everyone knew who he was and believed in him, he would not be able to follow through with his father's plan for him to die for the World's salvation."

Huh?

Finally, to illustrate how the Holy Spirit moves in the world (in a sermon entitled "Still Cookin'" that talks about the aromas of home cooking), the minister stood front and center with a bottle of Febreeze in his hand. He raised the can and sprayed the air for a few seconds. "Now, some of you can smell it now and some of you won't smell it for a few more seconds. But eventually everyone in the room will be able to smell it."

As it happened, the scent never made it's way to me in the back of the room -- I don't know why -- but what came to mind immediately was the contrast between Unitarian Universalist diligent avoidance of scent in their places of worship and this Lutheran minister's approach.