One of my favorite stories to tell about my brother is how he made fun of me once after I referenced the 1980’s cartoon Gummi Bears. Somehow in our childhood, I loved this show but he’d totally missed it, and when I brought it up decades later, he was sure I’d imagined it. So I made the same reference that night at dinner with a bunch of his friends, and they all burst out singing the theme song: “Dashing and daring, courageous and caring, faithful and friendly with stories to share…” My brother’s face was priceless as he displayed just how stunned he was that this was a real thing. I didn’t let it show, but I was a little stunned myself that six people who hadn’t seen a show since preschool could dig all that out of their memories.
But my brother’s former Children’s Choir director tells a story about him too. He was just in second or third grade, sitting next to her in the worship service while my mom and I were doing something musical. The point in the service came when we said the Apostles’ Creed, and while the Children’s Choir director dutifully turned to page 881 in her hymnal, my brother just started reeling off all the words. She’d been in the church since long before he was born, but I suppose he had been in worship a higher percentage of his Sundays than she had, and some things had started to stick, the way the book of Proverbs says they will.
In some parts of the world, this Sunday is called Low Sunday, to differentiate it from the Feast Day of Easter the week before. I’ve heard pastors joke about the Low being a reference to attendance this particular week. I hope all of us, whether watching or showing up in person to worship, will continue to do so even on the “low” weeks, so what’s in there will continue to stick.
