Read Online Boomtown by Nowen N. Particular - Free Book Online

“Look, Dad! Isn’t he cute ? Can I have one?”
    â€œSarah! What is that? Get it out of my face! Whose is it anyway?”
    â€œIt’s a gerbil , Dad. It’s Katrina’s. She’s got a whole mess of them. Can I have one?”
    â€œWhat? No. Sarah, the service is about to start! Janice, can you do something about this? Ruth?”
    Ruth took Sarah’s hand. “I’ll take care of it, Dad.
    C’mon, Sarah.”
    I heard Sarah chattering nonstop as Ruth dragged her back up the stairs and to the balcony. “His name is Whiskers. See how long they are? Do you think Dad will let me have one? I wonder what it eats? I want a black one. Or maybe a white one like this, what do you think? I can make a nest in a shoebox. I got one in my closet. What do they eat? Do gerbils smell?”
    Janice squeezed my hand. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about rock slides or stampedes.”
    â€œNo?”
    â€œYou’ll probably die from a nervous breakdown before Sarah gets to be eleven.”
    â€œI think you’re probably right.”
    After the piano overture, the service started with announcements from Vera DeFazio. But before I continue, I should like to explain something about what I was expecting . After fourteen years with my previous congregation, I had gotten used to a rather somber environment. Quiet hymns played slowly on an ancient organ by a woman who was twice as old as the hymns. Long prayers and long sermons attended by silent congregants sitting on hard pews; that was the custom.
    I’m not complaining, you understand. Most of my members were elderly, having attended the same church and sat in the same seat since they were children, probably prepared to die sitting in the same spot. Most objects in the building had one of their names on a plaque indicating the date of when they or their parents or their parents’ parents had donated the pulpit or the altar or a stained-glass window or one of the hymnals. That’s the way it was. The members were like part of the furniture.
    It was my job to be their minister—to care for the sick, visit the lonely, and preach on Sundays. I had faithfully done so from the first day until the last, each day as similar to the one before as the one that followed. In the entire fourteen years I was a pastor of that church, I was never once surprised . We followed the liturgy to the letter. People stood up and sat down on cue. I preached my sermons. That’s the way it was.
    So perhaps that will help to explain why I was so amazed by what I saw on my first Sunday at Boomtown Church. I was used to a high level of formality and decorum, but the people of this church seemed to possess none of it. Vera leaped up from her seat and ran down the aisle smiling and waving at her friends as she came to the stage.
    â€œDon’t forget,” she announced, “October is just around the corner. We’re hosting a booth in Farmers’ Park from the last week in September until Halloween. We’ll be selling cakes and pies to raise money for our missionaries. Also, this coming weekend, the youth are having a campout on Left Foot Island. The theme this time is ‘Antarctic Adventure,’ so remember to wear your penguin costumes and your mukluks!”
    Announcements were followed by fifteen minutes of the most enthusiastic singing I’d ever heard in church. If it was loud and they could clap to it, that’s what we sang. Ingrid, the church secretary, was also the pianist and she banged away on the keys like she was pounding out flour. The members of the choir clapped their hands and stomped their feet in time with the music. Every now and then someone called out the name of a favorite hymn, and we’d sing that too. The worship could only be described as exuberant ; I’d never seen people have so much fun in church before.
    After the music, it was time for the offering meditation and then the