Sunday, May 18, 2008

Strange Examples

My new Bishop is from New York. He is pretty mellow for a New Yorker. He once said that he when he was young, his parents put him in little league and his mother would sit in the stands every game and scream at him to do well, at the umpire to call the game right, and at anyone else. He said that one day, his someone asked who that loud, obnoxious lady was in the crowd and Bishop McGarr proudly claimed her for his mother. Loud and obnoxious was high praise indeed for New York and his mother couldn't have gotten a better compliment in his estimation! She was pleased too.

That is a little preview of the type of man our bishop is. We can never anticipate what will come out of his mouth. Today in Sunday School, we were talking about tolerance and getting along with people. I'll admit that there were several people who were dozing/not paying attention....until the bishop raised his hand to comment. "The best analogy I can't think of," he began, "is that it is kind of like dogs." This is how it began and it was amazing to see all of the doze-ers perk up. "I mean, you take your Saint Bernard or Great Dane to the park and they meet a little Chihauhau and you think, that dog is going to be eaten alive. Instead, they look at each other and then proceed to sniff each others butts. They don't care that one's big or little or brown or white. Everyone's equal and is worth a sniff. Not that I'm saying that we should sniff other people, but we should be more accepting like dogs."

Yes, that's my bishop. It sure makes the ward a lot more interesting....