Jesus Likes It When...

If you have been following my blogs for years and years, you might remember the Sunday about five years ago when we told Silas to dress up for church. And you might remember that he came out of his bedroom wearing a tiger costume because, well, we told him to dress up. And you also might remember that that was the church where we met The Sunday School Teacher Who Channeled Jesus.

She was a wonderful person who knew all of Jesus's likes and dislikes: "Jesus likes it when we wear macaroni necklaces." And, "Don't peel that sticker off your shirt. Jesus likes it when we wear stickers with churches on them." Jesus also liked it when we finished our snack of Goldfish crackers, said "Excuse me" when we burped, and cleaned the paste off the chipped wooden tables. Outside of the New Testament, this woman was the most definitive authority on the persona of Jesus that I had ever met.

If The Sunday School Teacher can say with such authority that Jesus likes Goldfish, macaroni necklaces, and stickers, I can say without much doubt, that He must be a loose and easy kind of guy who also likes other things that make life worth living. Take, for example, pancit noodles. There is nothing finer than well-made pancit noodles. The Filipino community at the church here always serves pancit noodles after church on Fridays instead of donuts and cookies, and it is just GOOD, so I think it is pretty safe to assume that Jesus would like that.

The church here also runs with the idea that Jesus loves flag dances, as evidenced by the video at the bottom of this post.

And on Good Friday, we learned that Jesus also likes storytelling on the beach, followed by a good sail out into the Gulf of Oman. We broke from the approved Protestant Church here to attend a more informal gathering on a small beach. The church building was a series of three EZ Ups strung together with grey duct tape, and was carpeted underneath with plastic beach mats. A motivated set of moms laded an eight foot stretch of table with freshly cut fruit, finger sandwiches, sausages, and **GASP** sliced pork roast! People traded their Easter bonnets and sundresses for bathing suits and floppy beach hats.

An enterprising mother buried an Easter egg hunt--she nestled chocolate eggs in the sand, only to have them melt, and another put jelly beans in ziploc baggies and buried them, too. Unfortunately only a third of the bags was found, but those that were found were much appreciated. An older couple gathered the children together before they all set off aboard kayaks, boogey boards, and sail boats, and told them the story of Good Friday. They read a little scripture, gasped over the crown of thorns, half-heartedly looked for the missing candy bags, and then sent the kids down to the surf to spend the rest of the morning in the ocean.

Jesus likes it when we sail, lose candy in the sand, and eat watermelon on the beach. I think it reminds him of the good old days.