Some time ago, I bought for my son Dave “What have we learned, Charlie Brown?”

If you’ve never seen it, and almost no one seems to have, it is a discussion by Linus and Charlie about the evils of war. Unfortunate that so many die, so much is wasted, yet a necessary evil sometimes. Thus I occasionally wonder about that.

I thought about it again last night when I sat down to write the bulletin. I’d just spent a day building a shed. Mike, who came and helped, had confessed he’d never built a shed before and always wanted to see how it was done. Well, what had he learned? It all depends on how you look at it.

I mean, here’s what I might have learned. Randy can’t count, because twice poor Robert had to run to the lumber store to buy a sheet or a portion of a sheet of plywood, since we didn’t have enough. Randy sweats and smells something just terrible! Randy’s mouth runs blah blah blah non-stop and he’s always teasing. Randy is lazy and makes Mike cut all the wood, he foolishly gets gout from eating too many sausages (even though he knows it will do him in) and he has trouble bending over and picking up stuff from the ground. He is bossy and acts like he knows what he’s doing even though it seems like he doesn’t.

OR he might have noticed this. Randy has dirty knees, dirty legs, dirty hands. That’s because he gets right down on the ground and doesn’t hesitate to get the job done. Randy built a shed without a print in his hand and it actually turned out pretty good! He showed everyone a couple woodworking tricks, and didn’t act all uppity. Finally, Randy simply enjoys his Christian walk. He lives! Oh, he’s loud and obnoxious but its obvious he’s having a great time and enjoys building a shed or two. He was the first one on the job to start, after lunch, and after dinner. He hardly ever slowed down. When he did sit down, near the very end of the day, he paid Sam a buck to pick up all the wood scraps and throw them neatly in the back of his pickup to take away. He made Mike cut wood so he could learn how to do it for himself a little better, and it worked! Sure he made mistakes but he owned up to them and instead of passing blame around he looked for solutions to problems. After all, when the “dust” all settled, the shed was built!

Now look around our congregation. You might zero in on annoying things, like kids yelling or aging songbooks. Maybe you just hate when that preacher quotes from his funky not-King-James version. People talk in services, they don’t dress up to the standard you’ve decided on, or you simply don’t like the shape of their heads.

OR you might say look at how robustly everyone sings here! And the preacher sure does know what he’s talking about. With home studies going on almost every day of the week of one sort or another this group is more than Sunday morning benchwarmers! Take note of those happy kids coming up from the classes with their latest bible lesson success in hand to bring to their parents. What about the genuine smiles, the welcome visitors get, the affection these people express for each other? Sure, they aren’t perfect and maybe someone here or there is a little frustrated with something but they are often overcome with hugs and concern. Not everyone can do everything of course, but those who can teach or serve do and the rest encourage them. What a place! And when the dust settles here, at the end of the day, the church stands built up from its many members.

So what have we learned? Sometimes we both look at the same thing yet see exactly what we want, because we’re looking for it: be it a beagle sitting on the doghouse roof or a famous WWI flying ace! So what do you want to see?

Randy