Like Licking Honey Off a Thorn: Church! It Can Be a Wondrous, Exciting Experience, but When Misused, It Can Also Hurt Like Hell!

I was maybe 7 or 8, and in trouble again, - sent to my room for what could have been any number of transgressions. Anyway, at that time they were putting a new bay window in our dining room and, upon some clandestine exploration, I had discovered a small hole in the operation with just a flap of tarpaper covering it. I had discovered it earlier in the day, so as I sat imprisoned in my room, a light went off in my head I can beat this So wearing just sox to lend stealth to my covert operation, I snuck down the back stairs, down the back hall, and (in stealth crouch) into the dinning room. Then squeezing through the hole under the window, I was out Into the fresh air of freedom Then as I began to make my way around the side of the house, I was stopped dead in my tracks, - PETRIFIED I was eye to eye with my Dad coming towards me, his hands gripped to the handles of a wheel barrel. Now, my Dad was a large muscular man (having been a construction foreman and truck driver before entering seminary), and, - he was wearing his maroon T-shirt, with his muscles rippling under the strain of the weight of the wheel barrel. In a nano second I was off, - up through the hole, down the hall, up the stairs, and into bed with the covers pulled over me faster than the Road Runner could ever hope to travel. Dad never said a thing about it, but he had to have set that wheel barrel down and had a wonderful laugh, - maybe even thinking of my attempted escape, "Well, the boy shows promise " And so it is, that I'm still trying to "escape" from things like boredom, and from the many little prisons that we all tend to surround ourselves with, including those that we make for ourselves. These writings then, are an attempt do just that, to free myself to "breath the clear clean air" of peace, truth, and love, unafraid now (well, relatively unafraid) of whoever might be "coming around the next corner" to "greet" me. So hey, maybe my thoughts and ramblings can help us both "flee the tomb". Now, - that would be really cool

JJ Gregg is a retired Ordained Christian Pastor, who resides with his wife in Rhode Island. He is a graduate of Bridgton Academy, Springfield College, and Duke University Divinity School. In his retirement, he enjoys writing and driving Tractor-Trailers.