A RARE THING

Our church got a new pastor when I was eighteen. He wasn't like the old one. Sure his hair was regulation for a Baptist minister; short and parted to one side. His suit was pressed and usually blue and his shoes were wing-tipped and shiny leather. But he was different I soon found out.

I discovered it the night I first rang his doorbell. I wasn't there to pay him a visit though. It was one of his daughters I was interested in. I didn't care which one. Any one of the three would do. I was meeting up with several other rival suitors (and a few girls from church we'd grown too accustomed to having around to be attracted to) to watch a movie with the preacher's kids at their house.

They were always having people over. And we all came I suppose because they, the sisters, were the only remotely new things in Tyler, TX that Summer after high school. So I rang the doorbell, excited to meet these rumored sisters and the new pastor face to face for the first time.

I was early, too early to be cool at all. I was nervous. I'd spotted the oldest sister at church that morning and really hoped she was home that night. She was a few years older than me. RIght out of college. I wondered if she'd taken a job in Dallas or left to get an advanced degree somewhere like I'd heard she wanted to. I wondered and hoped. I rang the doorbell again.

And waited.

And waited.

And when the door opened there he stood. My formerly suited pastor. Scratching his stomach. No suit. No shirt. No shoes. No pants. Just socks. And underwear. And a grin that gave away the joke.

My father-in-law was - is - like no other pastor I've ever met. A head full of theology, enough to make him a Doctor of something-or-another, but a desk drawer full of fart machines and a mouth spilling stories that all end the same way: with a laugh that borders on a scream.

My mother-in-law needs prayer. She lives with the man and the desk drawer and the mouth that came with him. And she raised three beautiful and giving daughters somehow in spite of him. And then gave one away, the oldest one, to a musician as irreverent as her husband. Poor woman.

I'm consoling her and humoring him this week. They've taken our bedroom and sent me to the couch and Becky to a kid's floor. But in exchange my mother-in-law is cooking - and she's the best cook - and my father-in-law is helping me ready the house for sale - painting the deck. And I'm grateful today for in-laws that tell jokes instead of being the butt of mine. And for family that plays and thinks and works together after all this time. That's a rare thing.