Then, someone pointed me to the Gospel of Luke. Apparently Jesus had had the audacity to heal someone on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees were upset. Jesus eyed them calmly and proclaimed, “Which one of you will have a son or an ox fall into a well, and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?” My first response was to wonder why no one ever talked about the son falling into the well. Then, I understood the general good news message here that God is not some mindless judge more interested in enforcing the letter of the law than in showing compassion to His people.

What brought this to mind today was that this morning I found myself in the position of having a friend with his ox in the ditch. Helping the friend was going to mean missing morning worship. I might not always know what it means to keep the Sabbath holy, but I’m guessing that going to church is at the top of the list. My friend owns a vineyard. (Very biblical!) It was time to harvest the grapes, and he had arranged for some people to help. However, bad weather and an impending deadline meant that my friend was in a very real bind.

So, this morning, I headed out to Dead Drop Vineyards in Republic, OH to harvest grapes. I count it a sign of blessing that throughout the morning I was reminded of various vineyard related parables and images from the Bible. I thought of “He is the vine, and I am the branches.” I thought of the vineyard workers who worked a full day and those who only worked a brief time and got paid the same. (You know who you are!) I thought of the Proverbs woman considering a vineyard and buying it. When the rain was coming down, I thought about the parable of the vineyard workers who killed the son of the vineyard owner. And I thought about the parable of the seeds, and the references to those who plant and what they do to plants that do not produce fruit. All in all, it was a very fruitful morning.

For those of you who haven’t seen a vineyard or a grape harvest, I’m including some pictures from the event.

One thing you can do when you want to feel old is find a group of college students who think that your high school era is a cool, retro time-period and then create an event where everyone celebrates said era. Because Sherry and I like feeling old, 80′s Night with the English Enthusiasts has become something of a tradition at TU. Sherry takes groups of students thrift-store shopping in order to find vintage 80′s duds. This year, she also did many of the girls’ hair. Traditionally, we’ve read 80′s song lyrics in a dramatic fashion, which isn’t hard to do since most of the songs were overly emotional. This year we added the horror that is karaoke. For the record, I did succumb to the microphone and performed a rendition of “Sweet Dreams” by the Eurythmics.

Visit Flickr for more photos.

Oh, the red tinted singer is Jaime, this year’s Outstanding Student in the Field of English at Tiffin University.

And also, now those folks that wanted us to be blogging about TU can be happy.

A woman was transported to the hospital Sunday afternoon after she was hit by a vehicle driven by her 8-year-old daughter.

Officer J— Q— of the Attica Police Department said the 8-year-old girl was backing out of a driveway on North Woodwind Drive when her mother tried to stop her and was hit by the vehicle.

The big question in my mind is: what kind of vehicle are we talking about here? Big wheel, family sedan, semi ? All options have their humor.

At any rate, as we sat on the porch handing out candy, Sherry all spiffied up and me wearing an Eddie Bauer sweater, I observed some things:

• I had forgotten what a wonderful lesson in manners Halloween is. The pattern of the night is quite recognizable: one approaches another and makes certain noises requesting a good or service–Trick or Treat; the good or service (candy in this case) is provided; the recipient says “Thank You.” Every child tonight either said thank you, was prompted to say thank you, or had a parent quizzing them if they said thank you. It was all very proper and nice.
• I became disturbed by the number of extremely small children dressed up as pumpkins. “Yes, dear, we’re going to dress you up as something we cut the head off of, scoop out the innards, and then carve into grotesque caricatures. We love you.” Just seems the unconscious is working overtime.
• Sherry actually scared some of the kids.
• Sherry is an incredibly liberal giver of candy. She started out giving THREE pieces to each kid. Mind you, we didn’t cheap out on the tiny little Bit O Honeys or other stuff that ends up sitting on the kids closet floor till Easter. No, we had Reese’s and Blow Pops and Nerds and KitKats. By the end of an hour, she was down to TWO. And then we were done. Unfortunately for some, the Trick Or Treating time here in Tiffin was TWO hours. Next year, we’ll have to ration more carefully.
• Some girls from Heidleberg came by collecting canned goods for the homeless. That was cool.
• We were trying, with our candy selection, to perhaps get a good rep on the block. You know, the cool house where they give good candy. Unfortunately, with Sherry dressed up and me sitting there in jeans/sweater, I think we just added to the more likely rep of weird house on the corner.
• I don’t care what the naysayers spout, between the parents getting out with their kids, the children learning manners, the kids having positive interactions with neighborhood adults, and the good clean fun of dressing up, this whole Trick or Treat thing seems like exactly what living in small town America is supposed to be.

Yup, assuming we’re not busy, you can bet on us next year to be buying more candy, sitting on the porch, and contributing to the cavity and obesity problems of our youth.

At first I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. The bus turned the corner, and I asked Sherry, “Were they shaming us?” Sherry said that she believed that they were. We, too, turned the corner and found ourselves waiting for a stop light behind the bus, and once again the young girls began shaming us.

I checked my shirt–buttoned–the headlights–on but not bright–distance from the bus–perfectly fine. Believing that we were being unfairly shamed, I pointed my finger and shamed right back at them. At which point, the girls, having been discovered and responded to, spun around in their seats in a giggling fit. I thought that all was well, until the next stop light when, as we parted ways with the bus, we were once again shamed.

Sherry and I have often thought that a good college slogan would be “Stamping out ignorance and bringing back shame,” but this, I say, is too far: little girls randomly shaming people out the back windows of school buses. Next thing you know they’ll be waggling their fingers at passersby.