A Man of All Ages

Pastor Randall Nathan, [Retard], has decided to go to Sunday School this morning.

He does not normally go to Sunday School, because going out in public voluntarily will cost him hermudgeon [hermit+curmudgeon] points in the Hermudgeon of The Year race. He thinks if he goes incognito, though, he might get away with it. Also, since hermudgeons do not communicate with one another, because that would defeat the purpose, it is pretty much up to each hermudgeon to decide if she or he has enough points to be Hermudgeon of the Year.

He is going to go to Forsythia Lutheran Church, the little church out in the country between the electron mines and the persimmon bogs. Forsythia can't afford a fulltime pastor, so students from Discordia Seminary in Capitol City come down on the weekends. The seminary used to be called Concordia, but after the great patripassionism controversy in the Arkansas-New Jersey Synod, it went independent and thought it only fair to change its name to Discordia.

Randall Nathan goes to worship at The Methodist, because they have a well-earned reputation for leaving hermudgeons, and everyone else, alone. He also wants to support Pastor Patty.

He is sometimes tempted to go to some other church, though, to see if he can figure out why he ever liked the church in the first place. There are plenty of churches he could choose from.

There are three St. John Churches in Periwinkle County.

The Roman Catholic church is St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, named for a man who lost his head because of a woman, which, stated that way, is not at all unusual.

"Catholic" means universal, and St. John the Catholic Baptist Church believes in universal salvation, except for those who do not believe in universal salvation. Of course, those who send in pledges to "Bible Piracy," the TV show of Joseph Olds IV, the great-grandson of Joseph "The Brigand" Olds, reformed pirate turned Bible scholar and founder of St. John the Catholic Baptist Church and College, will be universally saved more efficiently than those who don't.

There is also St. John the Diviner Epispocal Church, known for the ability of its first priest to find good places to dwell wells.

Randall Nathan, though, is in Cognito, his 1951 Studebaker, on his way to Sunday School at Forsythia Lutheran this morning because they have a new student from Discordia who reminds him a little of himself when he was that age, an earnest young man with a crewcut and a lot of passion, and because of the sign this young man has put on the side of the church building. It says "Sunday School For People of All Ages," and Randall Nathan is a man of all ages.