Signs and Portents
There was a light, funny article in yesterday's Washington Post about the growing phenomenon of church marquees sporting nuggets of folksy wisdom and spiritual encouragement. (Examples included: "Prayer is the best wireless connection," and "Pessimists need a kick in the can'ts.")
It prompted me to recall my personal favorite in this genre, spotted in South Georgia some years ago: "Read the Bible daily. It will scare the hell out of you."
But the marquee wisdom, while growing, is not universal, particularly in my own Episcopal Church, whose typically traditional and often gorgeous church architecture does not alway lend itself to bright signs with therapeutic messages. I remember a parish meeting I attended a few years back at an Anglo-Catholic Episcopal Church, in which one parishoner suggested a welcoming message on the wooden mass-schedule board outside. When another parishoner objected, she said: "Look, I'm not asking for much. Just that the first thing a passerby sees isn't 'Confessions Available On Request.'"
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