Hedging My Bets

Here's something weird.

When I was a child (I'm guessing around 12 years old), we driving down our road. We drove past King's Church.

Checking that out, I came across their website. How modern!

Their slogan is... well, is it a slogan or is that too trivial?... the bible verse quoted on the website is:

"For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve. Mark 10:45"

Interestingly, that is also the slogan of The Church of Latter-Day Tennis Rackets.

It's actually a really sophisticated website. Podcasts? Blogs? This isn't your father's church (unless you're Jesus).

There seems to be a job vacancy for working at Noah's Ark Pre-School.

I used to go to playschool at that church. It was there that I got my finger caught in a wooden train-track and had to be cut free by a doctor at the surgery opposite.

I could work there. It would be a bit of a commute. And I don't like children. Or believe in God. But I do have a massive wooden boat (should mention that in my covering letter...).

To be honest, I thought the website would have lots of amusing stuff on it, but it seems very professional and well put-together. So I might as well get back on track (blogwise, not fingertrap-wise).

I was 12, and we were driving down the road.

Of course, I wasn't driving. That would have been illegal. Unless I was going to crash into the church as a revenge attack for the whole finger/train-track incident. Which would have been harsh, as it was entirely self-inflicted.

We were driving past the church, and I happened to look at the noticeboard. We were a little way away, so I couldn't read things clearly, but I could see a poster with the image of a green maze on it.

No other information was visible.

I assume it was a visual metaphor about faith. Perhaps life is a hedge-maze and Jesus is a chainsaw.

I didn't really know. I was slightly curious. But not that curious. But strangely, I thought to myself: "Wouldn't it be weird if the image of the maze stayed with me? What if this seemingly innocuous puzzle remained in my brain for the rest of my life."

As you can tell, it has.

It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. I imagined the maze staying with me, and that very imagining perpetuated the image.

I don't know what the maze was about, but I can still remember it.

I'm not obsessed with it, of course. I don't think about it often. It's just there, in the back of my mind.

I haven't shaved my head in the design of a maze or anything. At great personal expense.

I don't have maze-based dreams every night, all night. I don't yearn for - long for - that maze; the solution to the riddle.

It doesn't MAKE ME SICK WITH WORRY.

WHERE IS THE MAZE? HOW DO I ESCAPE IT? AM I IN THE MAZE NOW?

MUST I ACCEPT THE LORD IN ORDER TO BREAK FREE?!!!

I don't think about that.

I do carry a chainsaw with me at all times, but that's more of an affectation. I sometimes use it to scratch my throbbing head.