‘Twas a Sunday near my affections. We gathered at Christ Covenant Church (3cs-canton.org). We sat under an elder teach on the Doctrine of Man/biblical anthropology. We heard the Scriptures and read and discussed and taught. We heard from Scripture that man is the crown of God’s creation–either male or female–created by the spoken word of God in Genesis. So much hinges upon that. Man is not mere matter in motion–some random collocation of atoms bandied about on the winds of chance or nothingness. Nothing of the sort. He is a creature formed by God to know God and to have fellowship with him. But sin . . . Sin shattered that. The first Adam failed to obey. But God the Son, being rich in mercy, became the second and last Adam in Christ Jesus. All of grace–from beginning to end–and God says to us rebels, “Come and live.”

Then I taught on “Joy Amidst Suffering,” based upon 1 Peter 4:12-19. I don’t know that anyone benefits as much as the teacher, if he cares to do the study. We don’t know something until we can teach it well. Lord, help me to be a good student–then a good teacher–in that order.

Then we went and ate Chinese food at one of our favorite restaurants. The proprietor is so friendly. She is, as is her daughter, the girl who fetches our water and brings the wonton soup. Then we ate our sesame chicken, and Hunan chicken (spicy!), fried rice, and even cracked open the fortune cookies at the end of the meal.

Afterwards we returned home, let the dog out, checked on our son who’s down with a cold, changed into swimwear, and went to the pool for a couple of hours. The sun appeared and disappeared on and off again behind the clouds that flirted with possible thunderstorms, perhaps arriving during the night.

I read for the umpteenth time more of McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, and my bride reclined on a lounge chair, her brown skin absorbing the sun, as if a sponge.

We had my JBL speaker on the table, too, and streamed Spotify playlists of music from the 1970s-80s, and I watched the fellow pool patrons sing along with Hall and Oates, Kenny Loggins, and Bill Withers’ tunes. A father tossed a green and black football to his lanky, pale son in the pool. A grandmother read the first volume of the Harry Potter series near the steps of the pool. An older man in a swimshirt swam laps in the middle of the pool, his shoulders brown from sun.

I put my book down on the table, watched the people, watched the trees, and snapped a photo of one of the healthy maples around the pool.

Now I’m back home. My bride is off to some friends’ house to practice music for next week. We’re meeting at a local park as part of Memorial Day weekend. We’re playing games, eating, enjoying fellowship, and we’ll once again hear the teaching and preaching of the Scriptures.

The novel at my side calls again, and I’m near done with yet another rereading of this masterpiece. Our family dog, Ladybug, is snoring atop the pink blanket in “her chair,” and all is well during this Sunday snapshot. Lord, thank you for the simple pleasures.