Here’s a little unpublished parable I wrote trying to explain how I sometimes feel about the church. It’s wordy, so you might want to print it out. And don’t get mad if it ends up as the first chapter of a book some day. Here you go: You’ll be a Dentist Jack was born to be a dentist. Both his mother and father were dentists and from an early age they took Jack with them once a week to their local dental school. Even as a child Jack loved dental school because of the children’s program where kids gathered in colorful rooms and listened to well-mannered teachers read ancient stories about famous dentists, pioneer dentists who created endodontic and prosthodontic procedures. Jack sat wide eyed and mouth agape, as close as he could to his teacher as she turned page after glorious page of cartooned characters knuckle deep in the mouths of sun-drenched and bushy-bearded patients. Jack would color pictures of molars and lateral incisors, first and second cuspids and third molars, sometimes referred to as wisdom teeth, the teacher would say, handing Jack a black and white line drawing of a tooth wearing a cap and gown. When Jack’s [...]
