Marathon Relayers, Terrifying Sunday School Songs, and Books

I just remembered one other thing that really irked me during the marathon. So, there was a half-marathon, the full marathon, and then a relay marathon. In the relay you teamed up as a group of four and each ran a fourth of the race. First, it was annoying to come to these relay points and watch people stop running. Yet, it was far more annoying to have all these fresh runners join you each 6.5 miles or so as you were slowly dying. The primal urge to coldcock one of these relay runners as they blazed by me in their second mile and my 21st was almost overwhelming.

So, I randomly had this song in my head from Sunday Schools past. Tell me that it's not slightly terrifying:

Somewhere in outer space God has prepared a place

for those who trust him and obey.

Jesus will come again and though we don't know when,

the countdown's getting lower every day.

(chorus)

ten and nine, eight and seven, six and five and four,

Call upon the Savior while you may,

three and two, coming through the clouds of bright array,

the countdown's getting lower everyday.

I don't remember singing this verse, but it is one of the verses of the song. I may have repressed it:

Soon will the trumpet sound, and we'll rise off the ground,

with Christ forever we will be.

Children where will you be throughout eternity? (YIKES!)

The countdown's getting lower everyday.

Then you sing the chorus again, and at the end of the song you do a countdown in earnest: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1....blast off (and then you look around to see if you did, in fact, get raptured)!

It is called the "Blast Off/Countdown Song." After that, you recite this verse in an almost trance-like state: "And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also. John 14:3" Where to start? Theology? Age-appropriateness? Fearful lyrics? I'll let you start and end where you like.

I have a growing pile of books that are just waiting for free time post-graduation. It makes me smile just thinking about it.

I recently read this quote about books by John Updike:

"Shelved rows of books warm and brighten the starkest room...By bedside and easy chair, books promise a cozy, swift, and silent release from this world into another...Smaller than a breadbox, bigger than a TV remote, the average book fits into the human hand with a seductive nestling, a kiss of texture...How many divorces have been forestalled by love of the same jointly acquired library? Books hold our beams down; they act as counterweight to our fickle and flighty natures."

I like that. Although I'm not sure just how many divorces were staved off by shared libraries, but maybe Updike's talking about his contemporaries/author friends. Well, time to head to World Relief. Later!