Flying in the sanctuary

On a post on my daughter's blog, she explained how graceful she can be. My wife posted a comment that spoke of me "flying in the sanctuary.' Valarie asked to hear the story. Here it is.

This is a picture of our church sanctuary. There is a wedding being planned in this pic. Please note the four steps that lead to the platform, and the staircases on each side leading to the baptistery.


I love dressing up and being silly for Sunday school or other children's ministries. I have a costume left over from the time I played Reuben the royal rodent in "My Way or Yahweh" about 20 years ago. I have resurrected the character as Ruben the church rat ("Church mice are a dime a dozen, I'm an original."). He has an alter ego as Ratman, who with his puppet sidekick, Squeaky, play the heroes in a lot of my skits.



In this particular skit, Squeaky is at the very top of the platform, which has a three foot wall which serves as a handy, impromptu puppet stage. I ascend the stairs on the right while engaging in conversation with Squeaky. I speak of needing to get back to the "Rat Hole" to recharge my batteries. With that I grab Sqeaky from the puppeteer's hand (a tricky move) and rush down the stairs. When I get to the platform, there are about three steps before you get to the stairs that lead to the floor.
Then (I tried it several times before the actual skit) I jumped from the platform to the sanctuary floor.I had planned to land, sprint to the double crash doors nearby, strike the Heisman pose with Squeaky, and crash through the doors.

The problem being was that on the way down, my heel caught the last step. This caused me to stumble, and wobble & stagger to keep my balance. As I got to the crash doors, I flung myself to the left to hit the crash bar. I missed, and crashed into the door. On the second try, I made it through the door.

I have learned that being 40+, fat, and non-athletic, this isn't a good thing to do. My flying days are over.