I am not myself a Christian— I have certain doctrinal differences with practically all the denominations (the Unitarians perhaps alone excepted) beginning with my disbelief in both the divine origin and the posthumous career of Jesus—and if this was a bad career move I am resigned to dealing with it in the sweet bye-and-bye-and-bye-and-bye (insert infinity glyph here). I am, however, married to a woman who attends church weekly, and from time to time I join her in helping out with some of their social events and outreach programs. These to date have involved almost exclusively kitchen work, as in their dinners for the homeless (I should mention here that I supported myself washing dishes in college in the early 1970s, so I have a professional expertise to draw upon here) and, this past weekend, their annual Mothers' Day event, for which, beginning at seven Sunday morning, I turned sixty hardboiled eggs into about 105 "deviled eggs" (there were a few casualties en route).

By early afternoon, after eggs, sandwich assembly, and running up and downstairs to replenish the various platters, I was feeling fairly tuckered, and looked forward to returning home for a mid-day nap, but a complication was introduced. A digression is necessary here.

At some point in the past year a youngster, now newly twelve, has adopted the congregation as a surrogate family. My wife first told me about him perhaps a month ago—the actual (divorced) parents are each for their own reasons (not fully understood by onlookers) somewhat disengaged, and the pastor and his wife have taken the boy under their wing recently, so that he has become accustomed to spending Sunday afternoons at their nearby home. Apparently this suits the father just fine, because he likes to spend his weekends at the golf course.

A couple of weeks ago I sent the spouse to church with a copy of Richard Halliburton's Book of Marvels for the boy, who was about to celebrate a birthday. Most of you might not be old enough to remember Richard Halliburton (no relation, so far as I can tell, to the firm of well-connected brigands at present looting the treasury), an amateur adventurer born in 1900 (disappeared in mid-Pacific 39 years later), but his two "Books of Marvels," composed for young readers, were still beloved of their target audience when I was ten, and I thought that the kid might enjoy my old copy.

On Mothers' Day the boy was observed moping because it was also the pastor's birthday, and his grown children had arranged to take him to a ballgame. This left the tyke at loose ends, and my wife, a generous soul, suggested that we should entertain him for the afternoon. We decided to take him to the [link|http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/coolthings/parks/Tilden/steamtrains.html|Tilden Park Steam Trains], and this was in the event very well received (he liked the t-shirt and the engineer's cap as well). We then headed off for a late lunch which, owing to sundry crowds, miscalculations and eventual poor service, kept us out until nearly six, when we returned the boy to his home—his father was still not back from the golf course.

I wish I could say that I enjoyed the afternoon more than I did. I feel sorry for the tyke, and he's a likable character: none of the faux-toughness that has settled on many a boy by that time (even at a like point in my own development in 1964), and a real sweetness and openness. On the other hand—and I wish I were a better person than this—he's not exactly stimulating company. I do better with adolescents, once they're past the violently antisocial phase (this lasts forever in some, I know), and Lina and I have had excellent interludes with assorted nephews and nieces as the "hip" (in the highly comparative sense that flatters us only given the proximity of the actual parents with all the history, responsibility and baggage appertaining thereunto) grownup relatives. This one, though, exists on the other side of that divide. He's lonely and he needs *love*, not the wry irony that I can usefully provide a mid-teen. The father is about seven years my junior, and L, who caught sight of him once, describes him as a "biker." The mother, we suspect, has, ah, "substance issues." I feel simultaneously an odd burgeoning responsibility and a resentment of a father who's more than happy to pass off his duties of paternal companionship to strangers so that his sunday golf game is unencumbered.

I don't know what I'm going to do about this, but it seems useful to think aloud.

cordially,