How to Ignite Your Pastor Up in Flames

I've decided to start getting more grounded in my new neighborhood.

In addition to being appointed a hearing citation officer here, which goes into effect next year, I've been making it a point of getting to know my pastor and his family.

Sorry to say, but it's been about 4 years since I've had to be accountable to anyone. I'm the type of person that needs accountability....it keeps me on the straight and narrow. And I tend to wander off now and then.

So I decided to invite my pastor, his wife and son over for dinner on Saturday night to get to know them better and to have them get to know me.

There were some difficult food restrictions duly noted and adhered to, not much of a problem. I made BooMama's famous Chicken 'n' Spinach Pasta Bake, sans onions.

As for dessert, I made some rugelach. A delicious Jewish cookie. Hey, I had to get my ethnicity known to them somehow.


Their teenage son ate spinach for the first time and actually liked it. Or was being polite about it. Being a PK (Pastor's Kid) is never easy, one of my good friends growing up was one and she would complain all the time about being a PK.

After dessert I asked if they would like to sit by the campfire and make smores. Yes they did. I love campfires.

Now, I know that it is most likely against the town ordinance to have a campfire in my 'preserved wetlands' backyard, but I just can't help it, I love the novelty of living in a rural town, far away from neighbors, on two acres of land...and I love sitting by a campfire in the cool summer nights roasting marshmallows.

So I started a fire out back. And we sat around it making smores. And we chatted some more. And we ate lots of smores.

What happened next I can only imagine happened because the pastor wanted to make a very important statement to me.

He turned his flimsy resin chair around, his back facing the fire, he looked directly at me with conviction in his eyes and raised his hands as if to make a dramatic point of what was about to come out of his anointed mouth. But he lost his balance as he sat there and fell backwards in slow motion.

Even though it felt like I had time to get out of my seat, stretch a bit, stroll over to him, stop and tie my shoes, check my manicure, catch a passing firefly and reach over and grab him from falling, all I could do is watch him and hope that he wasn't going to land directly behind him into the pit of fire.

Hey, his wife, the love of his life, his lifelong partner, sat next to me and she didn't move either.

After what seemed like a hour, he managed to twist his body into what can only be described as a pretzel shape on its side and landed on the outside rocks of the campfire and rolled to safety.

It was a close call though.

And having my pastor go up in flames wouldn't bode well with me in the community. I'm already convinced that my neighbors aren't going to like me very much once I start listening to their appeals regarding any zoning tickets they may get.

But still, I'm glad I wasn't the cause of my pastor falling into a pit of fire. That really would have not looked good for me.