Judgment Day, II

Once again, heading to Meeting on Sunday morning, Garrison Keillor spoke to my condition. Especially after the discussion with the ATV'ers (see the earlier post, if you're interested).

This time it was via a skit brought to listeners by the Ketchup Advisory Board. Jim and Barb are talking and she's fretting and she says, "Well, anyway I was just sitting here thinking, what if I die right now, and I get up to heaven, or wherever it is I'm going, and God wants a report, huh? Like, what have you been doing all this time down there?"

I flashed back to the ATV'ers and our conversation. Then she says, "I wouldn't know what to say, Jim. What-I got up and did the laundry, and grocery shopping and then came home and took a nap? I mean, that's not what God wants to hear, does he? ... I mean, where is all my charity work? I never volunteered at a hospital, or adopted a strip of highway-I mean, I couldn't even take in that stray raccoon who wandered into the garage?"

Me, neither, I thought. And while Nancy and I laughed as the skit unwound and became more absurd, after I reached Meeting, plopped in the pew, sang a couple of hymns, and then settled into the silence, I thought, "Yes, that is what God wants to hear, doesn't he?" "How'd you do?"

"Oh," comes my reply, "some good, some bad. Some outstanding, some quotidian."

"Well, done, thou good trying and faithful as best you can be servant."

Maybe I do need some ketchup. Maybe then Judgment Day wouldn't seem so fearful.

--Brent