335 - Flaugh Remembers His Student Parish

Flaugh Remembers His Student Parish
By Lewis Chamberlain

It was Golgotha
And Galilee and it
Lasted three years.

A touch of Winter Weather
In Dallas
Set Albert Flaugh
To thinking about
His student
Parish in Northern
Minnesota.

Golly it was cold
Up there
Those winters caused
Flaugh
To revise his picture
Of hell.

Hell would be a
Never-Ending-Winter
With a
Never-Coming-Spring
(The prospect of a fiery
inferno sounded downright
balmy).

Flaugh served
A two-point field
The Ecclesiastical Equivalent
Of having two wives
One pretty well tended
And the other receiving
Her conjugal rights.

Lewis Chamberlain is the minister of the Meneely Memorial Presbyterian Church, Dallas, Texas. If "the child is father of the man," we catch something of the doughty character of the Rev. Albert Flaugh as he reflects on his student pastorate. This is the sixth installment of the Flaugh saga and comes at a time when seminarians all over the country are returning to their studies after a summer internship

336 - Flaugh Remembers His Student Parish

Golgotha was tended
And full of troubles
Galilee was neglected
And no problem.

The Golgothans
Were Welsh
Mean as Snakes
Sang like Mockingbirds
And perpetuated a family
Feud within the life
Of the church.

The Galileans
Were Czech
Sweet as sugar
And had been at peace
Within living memory.

Golgotha
(As the name implies)
Was a tad hard
On the clergy.

The game was
To get the Parson
Involved in the family feud
And having accomplished same
They threw all kinds of barbs
At one another
Through him.

The denouement of it all
Was the offering up of Christ's
Minister as a living sacrifice
Holy and acceptable to the Lord
Thus obtaining a temporary truce
And a season of familial affection.

The Galileans
On the contrary
Would not so much
As brush a feather
Across the Parson.

But the Galileans
Did make certain demands.

337 - Flaugh Remembers His Student Parish

They did not like
The Pulpit Gown
(Flaugh obliged
reasoning that integrity is
nice if you can afford it).

The Galileans also
Expected moral perfection
In the Parson
And Flaugh's cigarettes
Disqualified him.

Every time they saw Flaugh
They forgave him
And Flaugh discovered
That being the daily recipient
Of forgiving love
Was intolerable
(It gets in your eyebrows).

The Golgothans
Made no such Exemplar demands
On the Parson
(They never thought that much of
one).

And Golgotha
Allowed Flaugh's family
A little humanity
(Flaugh's family found no
human place in Galilee
they were Porcelain
handled with special care
received furtive glances
but no human place
Flaugh's family hated Galilee).

And Golgotha
Contained some marginal
Church members who treated
The Flaughs like really people
(Thank God for marginal
church members
may the Lord deliver them
from excessive zeal).

338 - Flaugh Remembers His Student Parish

But Flaugh liked
Galilee Best
Every sermon was praised
To the high heavens
And after church
They gathered
Around Flaugh that his
Shadow might fall upon them.

Preaching at Golgotha
Was wrestling with prickly-pears
There were sleepers
Nodders
Despisers and
Deriders.

But Flaugh became a
Right Smart Preacher
Framing sermons to
Awaken sleepers
Jar nodders
Woo despisers
And command the respect of
Deriders.

And
Of course
Student Pastor Flaugh
Unloaded some of his worst
On those who loved him first
There were such Sermonic-Bell-Ringers as
THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD
(Flaugh wept)
TRAFFIC SAFETY NOW
(Bumper stickers inserted in the bulletins).
And
GOD PITY THE SOUTH
(Being a stirring defense of
the Confederacy and the
Southern way of life).

As Flaugh looked back
He realized he had received
Lots of mercy from both churches.

339 - Flaugh Remembers His Student Parish

The Welsh have a respect
For Gwroldeb
(Gwroldeb being a Welsh word meaning
gumption
and it was generally conceded
that Flaugh had Gwroldeb
and they accorded him a certain
amount of non-verbal respect).

And the Czechs would love him
And pray for him
Flaugh could feel those
Prayers and many times
His spirit could identify the
Intercessor.

And the end of it all
Did come Flaugh graduated
Had a call to Texas
And was going home.

There were congratulatory
Cards
Doings
Presents and praise.

And the Flaughs clunked
Towards home in
THE-OLD-BEAT-UP-PINK-PONTIAC.

The Flaughs laughed
And sang
And threw wrappings
And congratulatory cards
Out the window
Hurling maledictions upon
The Great State of Minnesota
And all God's people there.

About six miles out of town
THE-OLD-BEAT-UP-PINK-PONTIAC
Issued a complaint
Complained twice more
And stopped.

340 - Flaugh Remembers His Student Parish

And there they were
Sitting quietly
Six miles from it all
And God knows how many miles
From Texas.

The Flaughs were afraid
(Let the reader understand)
They had invested
THE-OLD-BEAT-UP-PINK-PONTIAC
With Punitive and Oracular
Powers

The wrath of the
OLD-BEAT-UP-PINK-PONTIAC
Had struck again.

A Galilean
Drove by and said he
Would tell the garage at Golgotha

After awhile a tow-truck
Showed up and hauled them back
(Flaugh noticed some of the cards
and wrappings along the road).

After repairs were made
The Welsh mechanic registered
A shy smile and mumbled something
To the effect that sometimes a bad beginning
Makes a good ending.

So the Flaughs headed out
A second time
Subdued
But hopeful
And at least
At long last
Done.

That's the way you leave Golgotha
And Galilee
After three years.