Abby's Alley

Being frugal is full of traps. Traps that are most effective on proud and ungrateful hearts: in essence mine.  To chose frugality over spending to my heart’s content means that I must refrain in ways that no one else seems to be doing. And that chasm between my imagined reality and the truth gives opportunity for a certain someone to stick an IV in my arm and start the flow of poisonous lies. The poison takes effect immediately. "I alone in this hedonistic America am practicing such virtues as temperance and self-discipline (Well, the nuns and monks are too but no one else). Everyone else is blind to their consumeristic waste and gluttony. Every middle-class person has NO appreciation for such simple luxuries like having their cars washed and shopping at Ralphs and buying a new shirt and and having meat at every meal and running their heaters and air conditioning at whim. If I were to have these things I would be grateful!  "But I am grateful even without those

Living in a community would be so much easier if it weren’t for those people. You know, the highly opinionated mom full of suggestions. The grandma continually reminding me that things were simpler in her day. The single gal who knows exactly how to mother her non-existent kids. And that elderly usher who’s so excited to see my children, that my four-year old hides beneath the church pew every Sunday. What I mean to say is I wish I could choose the people in my church.   But I suppose I’m limiting myself to just a handful of people, the ones that make me feel competent and bold and loved. After all, isn’t that what we mean when we say that we don’t particularly like someone? That we don’t like the version of ourselves that comes out when around them?  Yes, when teaching bible stories to three-year-olds, I feel authoritative and talented. But around those sassy high school students, I’m so outdated and silly. Some adults encourage my bravery. Still others gift me with things t

PREMISE:  Six laymen voice their thoughts during a pastor’s sermon. Unseen by the laymen, a senior devil gives lessons to a sub-devil as to the best ways to distract the congregation. The Holy Spirit—represented through stage lights and an ever-present mist (fog machine) seeping across the church floor—works against and sometimes in the midst of the devil’s schemes to move hearts and propel grace. INTRO:             In 1942 C.S. Lewis wrote 31 letters from a senior devil to his underling—                                   Wormwood—on how to  best tempt a human person. He called the letters                          The Screwtape Letters. And in the preface of this  book, he said: “There are                          two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the  devils.                          One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an                          excessive and  unhealthy interest in them.”