The Laughing Wolf

Passing Out

Over at Bodicca's, she has a tale of a Mass where one of the altar boys passed out. This comes hard on the heels of a son's first communion, and reminded me of when I joined the Methodist church as a youth.

In our case, it was something more than a first communion and included a type of baptism into the church and adulthood. We had studied for weeks, done all sorts of preparations designed to teach us and to prepare us for the ceremony. All went well, except for one young man.

When he finished his part in the ceremony and turned to go down the aisle and out, things got to be too much for him. His father must have realized something was wrong, because he was moving -- I was told -- from the moment his boy turned around. The poor kid got just a few steps down the aisle and went out like a light. His father caught him before he hit the floor, and quickly carried him on outside to recover. The boy was alright, and took some ribbing over the incident as people made light of it. The laughter took a lot of the sting and embarassment out of it for him. It also gave the more theological a chance to make a point about how the father was there to catch him when he fell so that he did not hit the ground, but was carried over his troubles. It made for one of the more interesting entries into that church.

LW