First, go grab a beverage and have a seat. Then come back and all I'll caution is to swallow before the punch line.
There was a church down the coast from me in Jonesport, Maine. Attendance had dwindled over the years. In fairness, it should be pointed out that the decline in attendance had more to do with folks moving away in search of work than with any loss of faith or the desire to worship the community.
Nonetheless, they soldiered on. Theirs was probably the largest building in town, certainly for height, even without the steeple, and was the post-card picture of a white clapboard New England church. A gorgeous building in the morning and evening sun, regardless of your religious views or affiliation.
Well, what with the decline in attendance and the concomitant decline in the collection plate, choices had to be made and the congregation decided that the support of their missionary work was more urgent than the maintenance needs of their building. Admirable. But they reached a point that she needed paint or the clapboards were apt to start rotting off.
So they undertook special collections, bake sales, even got a beano license to raise money to buy paint. The owner of the local Tru-Value belonged to another church but agreed to sell them the paint for his cost, and toss in two 40' ladders.
So the day came. They'd been scraping for a week and the entire congregation turned out on Saturday to get the church painted. Treated it like a big barn-raisin' and even got some Baptists from the church out on the main road to throw in a couple plates of brownies. They were makin' good progress, but as the day went on, they could see that those dry old clapboards were suckin' in more paint than they'd anticipated and that what they had left wasn't going to finish the job. All that and the hardware had closed at three.
Well, some of the wiser and more-experienced folks in the congregation had warned of such an eventuality, so they had organized their work so that it would be the end of the church away from the road and facing the salt water that would be done last.
But the paint held up well enough that they were able to start on that seaward end. Of course, the wod on that end was the most porous and their effort to stretch the remaining paint wer failing fast. Well, a decision was made to try and thin the paint to at least get a good coat of white on, and to apply another coat when the money could be raised to buy enough paint. After all, extra paint on the end facing the weather couldn't hurt.
Well, they had all they could do to thin it out enough to stretch and still see the difference as they brushed the last of it on. And it was all complicated by dark clouds and a wind coming in from the southwest. At the end, they were clappin' it on and got the ladders down just before the deluge fell from the skies. It was bad enough that everyone took refuge in the basement. As the wind, hail and rain subsided and the black skies began to lift, the congregation ventured out to see how they had done. Alas, the windward side was just a mess of streaks where the torrent had washed away the last of their paint.
One of the deacons raised his voice, thinking to summon the congregation to a prayer of thanks for the rain (which was otherwise badly needed) and to beseech provision for more paint. Before they could bow their heads a gap opened up in the clouds. One of those gaps that makes for those gorgeous beams of light just like the pictures in the Bible Story Book we all had as kids. And as the display of light became more beautiful, a voice emerged from the clouds, saying . . .
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