“And when the blind lead the blind, they both fall into a youth ministry.”
Those Darn Back Rubs
“Every month or so the stress of youth ministry—dealing with the kids and all their issues—would get to Johnny and so he would head on over to Brandy’s apartment to have her give him a neck rub, followed by her specialty back rub. But somehow her giving him a back rub always turned into him giving her a front rub, and then they would fall again. That was actually how their relationship started, which is to say, through those darn back rubs. It was her senior year in high school, and she was in Johnny’s youth group, which was a combination Bible study and daisy-chain back-rub circle. At the end of that year, they all had a good working knowledge of the gospel of Mark and significantly improved blood flow in the delts.”
So Many Hidden Premises
“But Johnny still agonized over such things—what size earring would the apostle Paul have worn if his mission had been to the skateboarding and pants-droopy youth of today? Not an easy question to answer.”
Which is a Problem
“That was just one problem with ministering to the youth of today—riding the waves of cool and contemporary youth ministry was like surfing the big ones, and with one false move, there you were with sand in your trunks.”
The Voice of Modest Experience
“Rourke had delivered at least three babies in the back seats of cars and taxi cabs, and thought he was qualified to assert that there was nothing whatever that was natural about it. It was the craziest thing in the world. Women were the kind of people that people came out of, for crying out loud, and he thought it was the kind of thing best monitored by world-class doctors and sophisticated electronic gear, maintained closely by teams of nurses with graduate degrees in astrophysics. But that was just his opinion.”
Angst as Disinfectant
“He had not managed to see Robert P. Warner—who was still asleep, exhausted as he was from a late night of blogging about the loneliness of urban angst as recorded by French filmmakers, subtitling their angst like crazy, although the existential anguish was redeemed and ameliorated somewhat by plenty of full French frontal nudity, which he felt translated well without the subtitles, as least for him—but Peaborne had obtained a brief audience with Mystic Union.”
Clarity in Some Respects
“Mystic Union held out because while she, the former Mrs. Winmore, had a set of unique and murky perspectives on the care and treatment of virtually every ailment, not to mention almost total confusion with regard to the appropriate laws of inference, almost to the point of thinking that wet streets cause rain, this did not obscure her clear-sighted view of the main chance, and her clear knowledge that she currently had a shot at the main chance. She was dedicated to the proposition that Robert P. Warner had a winning lottery ticket in his clammy little hand, and she was resolved to hold the other hand encouragingly. And occasionally to pat it while giving sound, strategic advice.”
A True Difficulty
“‘I am an easygoing man,’ he once told Cindi. ‘I take things in stride. I try to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit. I don’t fluster really. So why does this woman make me want to jump up and down on the hassock here, yelling and waving the remote?’ Cindi had been unsympathetic to his dilemma. ‘Because you watch the news on Channel 4? Instead of switching it?’”
The Sultry Sage
[He] “discovered in the process that Robert, in addition to his prowess in allegations of wrongdoing when it came to inappropriate touching by pastors, was also a true pasty blogger poet with greasy brown hair hanging in the eyes just right, and a sleepy look that suggested profundity more than bewilderment. Which just goes to show.”
Wound Really Tight
“In short, he was a very sore and fanatically gnat-strangling ex-employee, and he had three months of unemployment coming in which he might be able to settle at least a few scores. All his scruples were wound tight around his axle, and the more he gunned the engine, the more things were starting to smoke deep inside his head.”