Musings at 3am

My body has been waking up at 1am and 4am consistently for the past week or so, with me finally getting out of bed around 6:30. So I’ve been awake for about an hour now (since 2am), which is not a good thing but my brain is operating in 4th gear with the grammar of reverse so this should be interesting.

I have been watching much of the Firefly episodes of which the movie Serenity is based off of. Mostly for humor and to enjoy myself, but something about the ship itself has been dancing around in the back of my mind, and it centers around the last lines of Serenity. The captain is telling a new crew member the first rule of flying a (space)ship:

"Love. You can know all the math in the 'Verse, but take a boat in the air you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turning of worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells ya she's hurtin' 'fore she keens. Makes her home."

I sometimes wonder if the same principle applies to churches. I church I attend is done up in a cathedral style that is quite elegant, but it was pointed out to me that the ceiling looks much like an inverted boat hull. I have seen some movies where there will be ships as part of the sanctuary (I can’t remember them even if it wasn’t 3:30am). So what is the first rule of pasturing a church?

'Love. You can know all the administration in the world, but pastor a church you don’t love, she’ll shake you off just as sure as the sun rises and falls. Love keeps her going when she should close doors, tells you her problems before they show up. Makes her home.'

Now abide these three: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.

Time to go back to sleep … I think I'm starting to make sense ...