Over the summer I spent a few afternoons at the Prairie Athletic Club’s water slide, the one where you fly down on a blue tube * inside a blue tunnel. As I sat on the sidelines and watched folks of every size and gender shoot out the tunnel, I took the opportunity to watch them get off the tube. Conclusion: there is no graceful way to get off a tube.

Method #1. In this scene a rider, usually an adult, tries to look oh so graceful sitting up on the edge of the tube. Remember that this begins with your body in the ‘V’ position with the bottom of the ‘V’ (a.k.a. your butt) stuck inside the middle of the tube. So the rider struggles to push himself up with his hands on either side of the tube. This usually results in one or two slips that send him back to square one or over the edge into a face first plunge. Once the sitting up position is finally attained, he scootches forward and slips gracefully into the water feet first. Then the tube flips up and hits him in the back of the head. It’s very funny.

Method #2. This is usually reserved for 48 pound skin-and-bone kids. I call it the fold and fall method. In this scene a girl might simply fold herself more tightly so that the ‘V’ becomes an ‘I’. She drops through the hole in a not altogether elegant dunk, but almost all the action takes place under water, so it looks good even though it guarantees total wetness.

The real oddities begin when she has grown over the winter and discovers her butt has hit the bottom of the pool before her head and feet have cleared the tube. Thus trapped like a finger in Chinese finger cuffs, she can’t move. The fun escalates when the stuckness happens with her nose underwater. The ‘I’ suddenly explodes into every other letter in the alphabet.

Now, I could describe this method when used by a 200 pound man who is wedged into the tube to begin with, but I won’t. Draw your own picture.

Method #3. This method begins when the rider quite literally turns herself into a stick so that her body is basically a plank lying atop a tube. While this step generally is performed without much ado, the next step is where the fun begins.

In one option, the rider attempts to straddle the tube and step up and off. Unfortunately, unless you play for the NBA, you are not built with the length to achieve this little feat. The result can be an extreme amount of personal pain, and most assuredly will result in a very undignified forward flop into the water.

The second option is to slide one leg off the tube in an attempt to stand up quickly, throw the other leg over the tube and into the water, and to stand up head dry, smiling and tube in hand. Although I have actually seen this maneuver work two or three times, all the other times have usually ended with a side flop and the tube zipping away in the other direction to hit some unsuspecting 48 pound kid perfectly executing the fold and fall.

So folks, if maintaining poise and grace at all times is a requirement for your existence, don’t get on a tube.

Pastor B.

(*I refrained from calling these inflated donuts inner tubes. Many of you know that an inner tube has an inflation stem inside the hole, and this has lead to several more ungraceful moments in swimming history. But I’ll save that for another time.)

Our need for precision filters down to our calendars. These days everyone, it seems, has a date book within easy reach. We meticulously keep our appointments noted there with time and sometimes even the place.

It’s not odd then that our astronomy (a science constantly seeking precision) has set the exact time in which we change from one season to another. Fall (a.k.a. autumn) begins when the sun is directly over the equator on September 22.

Yet, our senses tell us the change in seasons doesn’t follow the calendar. Winter really starts in November. Spring waits for April. And fall? I have a hunch that many of us think the summer season has changed over when kids go back to school.

Good-bye summer. This is your final hurrah. Next Tuesday the schools open their doors with hopes and expectations for loads of students tromping back to the books. Next Monday fall begins.

Pastor B.

While you’re punching the remote and running through the stations, you may have tripped over the Roman Catholic television network (about around 75, I think). I realize any non-cable folks can’t get there, but for those of you who do you might also have stumbled upon Mother Anglica.

The spunky nun spouts spiritual wisdom that is food for all Christians. So, today a few of those shorter spoutings.

Everything starts with one person...I don’t care if you’re 5 or 105, God from all eternity chose you to be where you are, at this time in history, to change the world.

If you are following God, he never shows you the end. It’s always a walk of faith.

Faith is one foot on the ground, one foot in the air, and a quesy feeling in the stomach.

You are a holy bunch of sinners, and I’m in the club too.

You know what a realist is? A realist today is a neurotic with an excuse for doing nothing.

We have lost the theology of risk. Unless you are willing to do the ridiculous, God will not do the miraculous.

God is looking for dodos. There are a lot of people who know it can’t be done so they don’t do it. But a dodo doesn’t know it can’t be done. God uses dodos.

Patience is adjusting your time to God’s time.

St. Jerome had a terrible temper. He would hit himself with a rock everytime he lost his temper. I’d be dead as a doornail, with no ribs, if I did that.

Holiness is a beautiful struggle.

You may be the only Jesus your neighbor will ever see.

Everyone drags his own carcass to market. So be careful.

Pastor B.

In the mid-1970's two movie critics from Chicago began a television program on public television. The setting was made to look like a balcony, and the critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert sat on either side of the center aisle in seats that didn’t look a lot different than what OSLC has in its Mission Matinee Theater. They would review the most recent releases - usually four or five in the half-hour show. Often they disagreed on whether a film was worth seeing. If they agreed on a flick’s positive value, they would give it a "two thumbs up". Over the years movie makers longed for the ability to write "two thumbs up" in their movie ads.

In its public television days I watched the two quite often. I found it interesting that the reviews were not based on a sliding scale (one to four stars). Rather, it was thumbs up (worth seeing) or thumbs down (save your money).

When the show moved to commercial television (even movie critics want more money), I lost touch with the two because of the late Sunday time slot they owned. Still, I would occasionally run into it while surfing.

Over the early stages of the show I tended to side with Gene Siskel in those times when they disagreed. Siskel died of a brain tumor in 1999 and was replaced by Richard Roeper. The repartee was not the same. For the last few years, Ebert has also been ill.

It appears the show and its setting are coming to an end. Both Roeper and Ebert are cutting ties with the Disney conglomerate which now owns the franchise. However, "two thumbs up" is a trademarked phrase so it still belongs to Ebert and Siskel’s widow.

So, another era comes to an end. I’m not an avid movie goer, but if I was going to see a film I would mostly consider those ones that received "two thumbs up." Adios Siskel and Ebert. It was a great run.

Pastor B.

Not a lot of science involved here, but some observations. It seems to me that in a world more and more electronically connected we seem to be increasing our isolation

A few weeks ago Susan and I were out to eat. Not far from us was a couple in their mid-20's also dining out. Right after the drinks were served the young man received a call on his cell phone. For the next half-hour he talked to an unseen companion while the companion on the other side of the table sat alone and bored.

In meeting with couples before weddings I take down the usual pieces of information. No one has a land line phone anymore. Everyone has a cell phone that does not belong to a "community" of users but to one person. When you call a land line phone you may be greeted by anyone in the household. Usually a little light conversation connects you to each others lives. With cell phones, you normally only talk to the person you want to call. It’s my phone, not ours.

Will the white pages of the phonebook start getting thinner and thinner? Cell phone numbers are not listed and most cell phone owners prefer it that way. Still, the phonebook is a sign of community and the unity of humanity in a certain place. If you’re not there, you’re not part of the community.

A couple of days ago I saw three high school age girls walking down the Main Street sidewalk. Each had a phone glued to an ear. They were walking together, but each was in her own little space.

I have a cell phone. My wife has a cell phone. We’ve become relatively dependent on them though we’re pledged to turn them off in restaurants and several other venues. They’re not going to go away anytime soon, I’m sure. Do you think it’s possible that those three girls were talking to each other.

Pastor B.