. . .Part of the Gospel Plan

This guy cracks me up . . . I'm sure you'll relate!

Kirby: Pew crawling is part of the gospel plan
Robert KirbyTribune columnistSalt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated:03/23/2007 09:12:33 PM MDT

Several weeks ago, I was minding my own business during church when a gap-toothed freckled head suddenly appeared on the floor between my feet. A 4-year-old boy had crawled under six rows of pews to reach me. The kid wasn't interested in me. He was pursuing the common knowledge among Rosecrest 1st Ward kids that Brother Kirby doesn't care if you search his briefcase for something to eat. The rules are simple. Don't make a mess. Be quiet about it. Finally, you can have any candy, gum, Rolaids, etc., that you find, but not the Lortab. Brother Kirby needs those to get through High Priests Group. The kid located some Starburst before squirming around and heading back in the direction of his family. I monitored his progress from the surprised looks on the faces of adults. The most excruciatingly boring human experience on Earth is two minutes of church when you're 8 or 9. Time actually seems to go in reverse. You'll do anything to alleviate the smothering effects of adults worshipping their own seriousness. Some people think that any kid can be made to sit reverently in church. Teach them properly and they'll sit there like apostles for an hour. This is, of course, crap. There are only two (legal) methods by which a small child will be reverent for an entire church meeting: Benadryl and biology. Any kid who doesn't make a noise or act up during worship is either bombed or genetically compliant. True, it's important to teach kids proper behavior. But the effectiveness of any parental plan varies from kid to kid. If you don't think so, it's because you didn't raise a kid like me. My parents tried everything to get me to sit still in church - threats, love, rewards, punishment, guilt, etc. Even when the old man got fed up and snatched me out of sacrament meeting by a leg, it failed to work. I was always more afraid of being bored than I was of being whacked. Come to think of it, if someone had simply convinced me that hell was more boring than church, I'd probably be an apostle. Eventually, I realized that threatening a horrified sibling with a booger wasn't the only way to get through a church meeting. Some of church was actually interesting, and the parts that weren't had to be endured quietly out of fairness to others. After the meeting several weeks ago, the kid's father tried to apologize for his son. I told him not to worry, that it was actually a blessing in disguise. The kid and I helped each other get through church. I say, that makes Starburst and pew crawling part of the gospel plan. rkirby@ sltrib.com