A Sunday School Memory

I have two memories from Sunday School that stick very close with me, even all these years after they happened.

The first happened in ... oh, I'll say fourth or fifth grade. The Sunday School teacher said we were all going to go to Disney World on a big, air-conditioned bus (make-believe, of course). He went dancing around the table asking each of us, "You want to go to Disney World? And you? And you?"

When he got around to me, I said no, I didn't want to go. I smelled a rat. He sighed and moved on to the next person.

The teacher - let's call him V - pretended to drive the bus, once he'd gotten everyone to sign up for this Disney trip. Then he mimed opening the door of the bus and said, "All right, we're here! Only we're in Somalia. Everyone is starving, they have no clean water to drink, and it's 100˚F outside. What are you going to do to show these people God's love?"

Talk about betrayal.

Some kids said we could let the Somali people onto the bus to cool off in the AC. That idea was shot down because the bus was too small for everyone to get in and cool down. Others said we could share our food and water with them. Again, shot down because we didn't have enough. I shrugged when it was my turn to talk and said, "I said I wasn't going." I wish now I'd said, "Let's take them all to Disney with us" instead.

But the worst part was that there was no resolution. No way to reach out and help these people. I'm sure the point was to raise awareness of refugees or something, but damned if I can remember V making that point. I left feeling impotent and helpless, and that feeling of "What's the point of helping? I can't help everyone" has stuck with me ever since, even when I do try to reach out and help with some cause or another.



The second memory predates this one, I'm pretty sure, but it has to predate it pretty closely, because it was the same classroom as the first memory. Different teacher, this time - we'll call him K. I don't remember what K was talking about that day, don't remember the lesson or the scripture or whatever. All I remember was that he was talking about epiphanies, or Epiphany (don't remember), and I raised my hand with a statement or a question (again, don't remember - this story is so going places) and K got all excited, jumped to his feet, pointed at me, and said: "YOU ARE AN EPIPHANY!"

I now know that that's, uh, not really the proper use of the term. But that day, it didn't matter. That day, I was special. I was smart. I was an epiphany, and I was going to go out and do God's work!

That urge kind of dissipated after the experience in V's class. But not entirely.



I'm grateful for both of these experiences.

K was right (despite his misuse of the English language). I have a decent head on my shoulders, a pretty passionate fire burning in my chest, and a big ol' mouth for getting my ideas out there. I have power to persuade people, and hopefully God guiding me to persuade people in a positive direction.

But V was right, too - you can show up with all your good intentions and comforts, but you can't help everyone. He seriously missed the boat when it came to impressing the you can still help some, though point onto my impressionable young mind, but hey, nobody's perfect.

I've been to impoverished places. I've seen suffering that can't be fixed with a trip to Disney. But I'm an epiphany, whatever that means. Maybe it means instead of saying no to a trip to Disney, next time I should look my teacher in the eye and say, "Hey, let's go to Somalia instead."

Wouldn't that just beat all.