Seating Arrangements

     They have remodeled the sanctuary at our church and it looks very nice but the pews are gone!  There are chairs now. They are softer and they hook together so there is almost a pew-like bench if things get crowded, but the best thing about them is that they can be unhooked and act like regular chairs if they are needed elsewhere. It is very practical. Still, things have changed. (
    When you always sit in the same place and everyone around you sits in their same places, you get to kind of know everybody there.  A couple of weeks ago, when my friend, Valerie, looked back and saw we were two rows behind her family instead of right behind, she looked at me like "What is going on???" and all I could do was shrug. It made it strange when we stood up during the greeting time and we had to shake hands with people we didn't already know. So the next week when we got there before Valerie's family, I stood behind her row and kind of draped my arm across the backs of the chairs when anybody looked like they might want to sit there.
     But this week there was already someone sitting in Valerie's seat when I came in and I met her and her name is Phyllis and she has been married fifty-five years! It's remarkable the things you can learn. I thought she was new to the church because I had never seen her before and I think she thought the same thing was true about me, but apparently she has been going there a long time too. I don't know where she has been sitting.
     We visited a church once and inadvertently sat in some one's regular seat. The people behind us said "You're new here, right?" and we nodded, and they said, "Thought so. You're sitting in the Wilsons' seats." Apparently, the Wilsons were on vacation that week but it was still their pew and we were interlopers, even though they weren't there. And when we first moved to St. Louis we visited (once) a church that we nicknamed "First Church of the Frigidaire" because not a person spoke to us coming or going. Now that I think about it, it was probably because we had sat in a pew without thinking and displaced the usual occupants.
     And now our pastor is saying this week is "Bring a Friend" week. Boy, will that mess things up.  Nobody will get their usual spot if everybody has someone new sitting next to them. It will be like that "Fruit Basket Turnover" game we played as kids. Or when the organ starts playing it might be "Musical Chairs" with somebody left standing, looking for a place to sit.
     I don't know. If people start moving around in church and shaking hands with folks they've never met, and getting to know new people, things might get really weird. Like in the Bible when they met together all the time and all took care of each other and spent all their time listening to the teaching and praising God and "fellowshipping" with each other.
     I don't think they even HAD pews back then!