Let Us Pray -- uhh!

The meetings that I attend regularly in The New City are on a bus line convenient to a Salvation Army rehab center.  So we get a lot of guys who are in the Salvation Army program, whatever the hell that is.  I don't even really know what the Salvation Army is, let alone any programs they may or may not have.  I get the vague impression that they do good things.  I always put money in the red bucket when I pass someone ringing a little bell around the holidays.  Folding money, too; not change, even though I disguise the one dollar bill by crumpling it up and stuffing it in the slot as quickly as I can.

I don't know this man that well, having met him only a couple of months ago, but I was touched that he thought enough of SuperK and me to invite us to his graduation.   This is not normally something I would have done, to be honest about it, because it wasn't all about me.  I didn't want to drive out to the airport to sit in a church pew right around my dinner time.

"Do you think they'll serve snacks?" I asked SuperK.  "That's my supper time."
"It's a Salvation army rehab center, you dumb ass," she pointed out.
"So . . . no snacks?" I said ruefully.  "Is that what you're telling me?"
I looked up the origins of The Salvation Army before we left and I found out that it's an evangelical Christian origin that uses a quasi-military structure.  I pondered this, and was hard pressed to think of two organizational structures that irritate me more than these two.  I thought of my friend who showed up in The New City penniless and destitute 6 months earlier.  I figured that his family wouldn't make the trip to see him graduate.  I thought about what a tremendous accomplishment this was for him.

The ceremony itself was so over the top that I could barely keep a straight face as I sat in the hard pew, worrying about the snacks, marveling at the great enunciation that the "major" used during his remarks.

"I'd like to ask everyone to raise their hands to the sky - uhh!   Let us pray -- uhh!"

Really, it was OK.  My friend spoke for a minute, and spoke well, from the heart, and was overcome by honest emotion, proud of his achievement and the crowd of supporters who showed up from the morning meeting.  Part of the ceremony involved having someone affix the Salvation Army pin to your lapel, and he asked a rough looking character from the morning meeting to do the honor.  The guy had on a long trench coat and looked out of place amid all of the suits and ties but who gives a shit about that kind of stuff anymore?  The dude showed up.

This after 2 months in the new place.