As this series winds toward its conclusion, I find myself reflecting on the dozen-or-so years I’ve enjoyed in our church. It’s not surprising that the moments that linger are moments of laughter. Only man, Mark Twain once said, laughs, or needs to.
In 2003 our church marked its bicentennial and I worked with our revered minister emeritus to prepare a bus tour tracing our history in Montreal that began when the city’s population was just 9,000, to the cemetery atop Mount Royal where so many of our saints have found eternal rest. We hoped to fill a school bus—we needed three to handle the crowd. The minister emeritus guided the first bus, a museum director the second, and the overflow got me in the third.
The first stop was along the water front in Old Montreal where we set out on foot to find the locations of the first St. Paul’s and St. Andrew’s, long since demolished for warehouses converted into condos and boutiques. I told my footloose flock that we would reassemble in about half an hour on Rue de la Commune in the same place we’d left the buses. I guess I was the only one who didn’t get the memo, because the three drivers and the other guides had agreed they’d meet up several blocks away where the parking was easier.
Where’s the bus? Anybody got a cell phone? Anybody have a number to call? Aaaarrghh. I set off at a trot, seeking three yellow school buses. Call the church, somebody’ll come to get us! It’s Saturday, the office is closed!
Somebody must have figured it out because our bus rumbled back to us about 15 minutes later. We got a somewhat accelerated tour catching up to the others and finally arrived back at the church for lunch in some semblance of order. But it will go down in the historical record as the day Randall lost his bus.
Communion Sundays are, as they should be, solemn occasions at our church. Carefully orchestrated, elders dressed in morning coats fan down the aisles serving bread and tiny cups of wine to the congregation. It is a nervous moment for novice elders, but I survived my first few attempts without severely embarrassing myself or the tradition until one fateful Sunday morning. In my turn, I picked up the tray of wine cups from the communion table and turned to descend the chancel steps. Never serve communion wearing new shoes. My foot slipped on the polished floor. In a moment that seemed to last a lifetime, I saw horrified faces of choir sopranos waiting to be drenched with wine. It may have been my superb athletic coordination or, more likely, the Lord taking pity on this poor sinner, but I regained my balance and headed down my assigned aisle. Commnicants, I fear, suspected budget cuts had gone too far as they sipped but a tiny drop of wine left in the cups, the remainder sloshing about on the tray I carefully balanced for the eternity it took to complete my duties.
There was a young assistant minister a few years ago, a bright and progressive young man and his pretty and charming wife. They were from the west, and my wife and I invited them to an immersion in Québecois culture on the Fête de la Saint-Jean—known in Quebec in recent years as La Fête Nationale. After a few light libations on the back patio, we headed for the large local park and a concert by a handful of local rockers and singers. We parked many blocks away and lugged a couple of back packs loaded with snacks and two bottles of wine to the entrance and joined thousands of others jostling past the security check point.
“No glass bottles allowed in the park,” bellowed the rent-a-cop as he checked our back packs. We protested in vain. We arranged coordinates to meet our wives and turned to trudge back to the car with the wine.
“Hey,” called another security guard, gesturing us over. “If you go around behind that hedge, you’ll find stacks of empty plastic water bottles. Pour the wine in those, and you’ll have no trouble.”
“Merci, monsieur. Bonne idée.”
We did as directed, and I placed our bottles on the trunk of a car and found several plastic bottles. I was wrestling with a corkscrew when a police car pulled up.
“Stand back! What are you two doing?” An officer approached.
I stammered our explanation in obviously accented French. She was dubious and asked for identification. She shook her head.
“That’s illegal. You can’t open a wine bottle on the trunk of a police car.”
For that indeed was the vehicle I had chosen in the semi-darkness. Maybe our innate honesty and maturity impressed her; more likely, she relented on this evening of good will and friendship. In the end, we smuggled our plastic bottles of wine into the park and thoroughly enjoyed the show.
The young assistant minister has moved on to lead his own flock, but the evening will be remembered as a highlight in a year in which he was ordained and I nearly got him arrested.
