Sooo, this is going to be an interesting weekend.  Several months ago I agreed to sing for a friend of mine.  He's a choir director, I've sung for him before. Maybe I should back up a bit.  About four years ago he persuaded me to sing in his church choir (which I was not eager to do in the first place, given how much baggage I still have over the way I was treated by my church when I came out).  I knew hubby might tease me a little about it, so I thought to beat him to the punch by writing the following: Freak Lightning Strikes Church, Parishioners Steamed.Bakersville, MA, Atrocious Press - Stunned onlookers gather at the corner to view what can only be described as an Act of God.   A 20-foot deep smoldering crater now exists where only this morning stood St. Mary's Episcopal.  Gone is the landmark nineteenth century architecture: the stonework, arches, slate roof and brick pavers of this Bakersville institution.  A few charred timbers, formerly pews, slide into the pit created by the repeated blasts and float in the greasy pool left by firefighters.Mrs. Wilhelmina Meyer-Weenosey, septuagenarian and neighbor, was doing yard work at the time.  "It was such a lovely morning I said to Ralph, 'Ralph, I should go prune the tea-roses, now that it's finally dry, they are such a tangle.' And sunny, so I wore my pink Rose Hat (for the roses, see?), the one with the extra-wide brim, my skin is so sensitive any more, I really shouldn't be out in the sun that much.""Anyway, just as I was on the third rosa odorata, the white ones next to the yellows, I had that feeling like I was being watched.  That's odd, I thought, and there was a bit of a chill all of a sudden.  Then I looked up, and land's sakes, I saw the blackest cloud hovering just inches over the steeple, and only as big as a car, but not my car, I have a Mini, maybe as big as the Henderson-Smith's Odyssey.  You never saw such a cloud.  Who would have thought one could look so much like a hand?""Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather, good thing I had on my gel knee-pads, because right then a bolt of lightning comes out of one of the fingers - which one?  Well what do you think?  He may be a God of Wrath, but He IS a gentleman! - and then the roof is gone, tiles everywhere, I think I still have slate flakes in my hat.""People started running out the door, pulling children, holding their ears crying and yelling "that voice, that VOICE!"  More and more lightning comes down (I swear to you that cloud was aiming),  the thunder so loud that my good pair of reading glasses shattered right there on the chain; and then when the fire started I yelled to Ralph, 'Ralph, call the fire department!'  'Okay Willie' - that's what he calls me, Willie - he hollered from the back porch because he came out to see what all the noise was.""I think everyone made it out okay, but it looked like a near-miss for that new priest, he's such a nice young man, though I wish he'd shave that silly little goatee.  His robes were smoking still, guess he was standing right next to where one of those bolts landed and he kept muttering to himself.  I could barely hear him, I'm not sure what he was saying, all the thunder made my ears ring so, but it sounded like 'we didn't know, we didn't know, there was a married gay atheist in the choir, we didn't know.'"+++++ Only this time, I promised to go spend a weekend in a monastery and sing for three services, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  What was I thinking?         They're nice people.  I like hanging out with them.  It's a good choir and my friend is an excellent musician.  Hope I don't bite a hole in my tongue over the doctrinal stuff.    Meanwhile, a friend of mine who is a medical assistant will visit hubby and change his dressings until I get back - his stitches come out on Monday!