I Was Board This Week

This past week was the Free Methodist Bible Quizzing Final competition. Last year the competition was held in Seattle, Washington. That trip took us all the way across the country. This year, the competition was held right here in my hometown, at Roberts Wesleyan College, so our trip was far less.

For those readers who are unfamiliar with Bible Quizzing, it is a competition where the participants are asked questions from a predetermined section of scripture. They sit on chairs and jump into the air at the end of the question. Pads that sit on the chairs register the order in which each person stands.

The contestants then take turns answering the question in the order in which they jumped. Until, that is, someone gets the answer right; then a new question is asked and the entire jumping process is repeated.

You might think that Bible Quizzers are a jumpy lot, but that would be jumping to conclusions.

Since  this competition was held at my alma mater, I thought I would be quite comfortable. Unfortunately, this was not the case. The first night I found that the bunk I was sleeping on was quite hard and I awoke as stiff as a proverbial board.

Apparently, sleeping on hard mattresses does not affect young people. When they weren’t quizzing, I saw Quizzers, who range from 6th graders to seniors, out for early morning runs, playing Frisbee before dinner, and a few of them actually doing one-armed cartwheels, amongst just a few active endeavors. (When I was young I couldn’t even do a two- armed cart wheel. I tried a few times but found the results to be an embarrassment and a danger to my health.)

That was how my day went, watching these young people jumping, running, and, cartwheeling; all the while I worked on stretching out stiff muscles from sleeping on my hard mattress.

I thought and thought of a way to make my bunk more comfortable. And so in the middle of the day I broke the rules, and sneaked off campus and back to my house. I cut a piece of plywood the same size as my mattress. Then I covertly brought that board back to campus and up to my dorm room.

Putting that sheet of plywood over the mattress was amazing. It was almost like sleeping on a fluffy cloud.

Almost.

But, I still didn’t try to do a cartwheel.

Sightseeing in Seattle (Part II)

Nineteen of us flew from Rochester, NY to Seattle, WA to represent our church at the Free Methodist National Bible Quiz competition. I was a coach and my three daughters were quizzers. I have written about Bible quizzing before, so I won’t bore you with the details. If you wish, you can read about it here. 

Since we flew across the entire country, to a city neither I, nor any of my fellow travelers had visited before, we worked in some time for sight seeing. This was a good thing. Seattle is large, and as with most large places, there is a lot to see. Some of the things we saw were unremarkably mundane, but there were still a lot of them.

One of the remarkable sights we saw was the Cascade mountains. While we were in Seattle there was one clear sunny day in which we were able to see all the mountains and especially, the most famous one, Mt. Ranier. The rest of the time it was cloudy and the mountains simply disappeared. I am sure that the TSA is investigating their disappearance.

The city of Seattle is quite hilly due to living so close to the mountains. I think the only flat spot we saw was Puget sound. It is so hilly that if you take purebred Seattlites and stand them on flat ground, they lean inexplicably. It is as if their minds cannot fathom flat land and decide that all land is dramatically sloped and therefore command the body to lean to accommodate the expected slope.

Another tourist sight we went to was the Space Needle, which was built for the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair. The observation deck is a whopping 520 feet above the ground. I was eager to go there since after a week rushing from quiz to quiz, chaperoning teens, and dorming with a number of imperfect strangers, I was ready for a little space.

When I actually made it to the Space Needle I was disappointed on two accounts. First, there was not an abundance of space. We were crammed into the elevator by the dozens and although there was a little more room to maneuver once we reached the observation deck, it was still crowded. It was definitely not named “Space Needle” because there was room to stretch out and enjoy much personal space.

Next, I assumed we would be close to space, as in outer space. This excited me with the possibility of seeing aliens and observing sattelites and space ships as the floated by.  At 520 feet, this was not the case. In the years between 1962 and 2012, someone has moved space further away from the surface of the earth. Since Seattle is predominantly a liberal city, as far as politics goes, I think they would probably blame the conservatives for this and I am sure conservatives would blame liberals. I believe the problem is a bipartisan one of politicians and all their hot air. Whether their beliefs are liberal or conservative does not matter. All their rhetoric filled hot air has made the atmosphere around earth larger, causing space to be pushed further away from earth.

We also took a ferry across Puget Sound to the quaint tourist attraction called Bainbridge Island. I was excited for this ferry ride. My hometown of Rochester, NY had a ferry for a short time and I never got a chance to ride it. The ferry was called the “Fast Ferry” and made trips between Rochester and Toronto Canada. The two major differences between the ferry to Bainbridge Island and the one between Rochester and Toronto are that a large number of people, other than tourists, actually need to ride between Bainbridge and Seattle-- for work and other activities of daily life, whereas people going to and from Toronto were mainly tourists. The other major difference is that the Seattle/Bainbridge ferry is still running and the Rochester/Toronto ferry is not. It was sold, fast, when it didn’t make any money.

I must confess, I do not know what the great attraction of Bainbridge Island to tourists is, but I do know that the town is filled with the quaint little shops that one would expect in a rustic tourist attraction. Small yarn shops, candle shops that have sweet smells coming from the doorways, little cafe’s with names like Pennywhistle Cafe and the Fork and Spoon. The latter is a real cafe located on Bainbridge Island. I ate there and didn’t need either a fork or a spoon. I had a  sandwich and chips, and I felt cheated since there was no use for their touted silverware.

There was an outdoorsy kind of store called Wild Erness, and a modernish kind of clothing store called Dan Ger as well. When I pointed these out to littlest she just rolled her eyes and said, “Dad, it is Wilderness and Danger.” I think she was wrong.

To conclude this entry on my trip to Seattle, I want to pass along an interesting tidbit I picked up about Bainbridge Island. It is thusly named because it is completely surrounded by water.

There was a wedding...

Hans Christian Andersen wrote in The Puppet-Show Man, “The whole world is a series of miracles, but we're so used to them we call them ordinary things.” Sometimes that is how scripture is read. The miracles have become so commonplace that any sense of wonder, excitement, and joy has disappeared.

I was struck by this thought while talking with a few teens about the seven miracles found in the Gospel according to John. By the way, the resurrection of Christ, although miraculous is not included in those seven miracles. When I investigated why the resurrection was not included, I was told that theologians do not count it as one of the seven. Go figure.

So we have a gospel where we count the miracles, stand when it is read, and have become dull to the wonder of the stories—the miracles. I wanted to try and recapture some of that joyful excitement and wonder for myself, so I retold the first miracle contained in John to myself and would like to share it with you. I have been told that to enjoy fiction a reader needs to suspend reality.  In order to enjoy this retelling I invite you to suspend memory. Pretend you have never heard this story before  and immerse yourself in it anew.

There was in a little town in the back country of Galilee, a wedding. The ceremony went off without a hitch, for which Hazaliel, the wedding coordinator was thankful. Now the reception was in full swing. The happy couple was happy. The guests were happy. And Hazaliel was happy.

The mood in the kitchen was not so happy. There was no more wine. This was not just an inconvenience; it was catastrophic. There were furtive whispers, “I am not gonna tell Haz, you tell him.” “No way, he is gonna pop like an over ripe fig.” Servants scurried, whispered, and cast accusing glances at one another. In the midst of this, a woman walked in. The servants thought to themselves, “This woman is no help. We need a man. Someone who can take charge; someone who can go buy more wine!” She heard the muffled whispers, she saw the looks, she knew they thought she was just in the way. But, she knew something they didn’t.

She slipped quietly from the kitchen and returned a few moments later with her son. Twelve of his friends tagged along. She cleared her throat and in a stage whisper spoke to her son, “They have run out of wine.”

Every eye turned to look at the pair. The servants began to hope that perhaps this strong young man was a vintner, someone who makes wine and could get them out of the pickle they were in.

The man scratched his head and looked at the woman. “Ma, this isn’t our concern, this is their party, they can cry if they want to, but it isn’t time for me to do my thing yet.”

She looked at him, with that look. You know the look. The look only a mother can give her son, the look that says, “I know all about you and you better do something about this because I am your MOTHER!”

The son knew that look too. The servants in the room watched his expression change. They knew that finally someone was going to do something. A man, someone who could do something, someone with authority.  

“Fill those jugs with water.” He directed. Everyone looked at him blankly for a moment. They were jars for ceremonial cleansing. They were to hold water for people to clean the dirt from their bodies. They were…bathtubs.

One of the servants started to bring in water. He thought to himself, “This guy is a lunatic, but at least when Haz finds out we are out of wine and hears what is going on he will yell at him and his mother, and not us.”

Another joined carrying water thinking to himself, “Oh this is rich, I wonder what kind of shenanigans this guy is up to.”

When the jars were full, the man told the servants to dip some up and take it to Haz for approval. The servants just stared. Gawked. Until finally, one of them worked up the courage to take a sample of the bathwater to the coordinator.

Everyone crowded in the doorway, watching with great, gleeful anticipation at the wrath that poor servant would incur when Haz tasted the bathwater. They held their breaths and watched him taste it. Then they watched him as he hurried to the groom. They overheard his excited words. “The best wine I ever tasted.”

Wait…What? “Best wine?”

They ran back into the kitchen and dipped some up. It was the best wine they had ever tasted and in the corner stood the woman, a scarf over her face as she suppressed her laughter.

What exactly is Bible Quizzing?

Last week I wrote about my road trip to Spring Arbor, MI. The purpose of that trip was to take a group of Bible Quizzers to Spring Arbor University for a National competition, the Final competition of the season.

Bible quizzing, for those who are unfamiliar with the sport, is a cross between Jeopardy and musical chairs. Except that people sit in the chairs and jump out, rather than stand by the chairs and jump in. On the chairs are pads, connected to a magic box, with pretty lights. The ‘quiz master’ pretends to be Alex Trebek and reads a question, and people jump out of their seats as if someone snuck up behind them and stabbed them with a pin. Then that magic box lights up and indicates which person jumped out of the chair first, second, third, and (unbelievably) fourth.

There is some ritual to this process. First, the quizmaster needs to let the quizzers know that he or she is ready to ask a question. This is done by announcing, “Question, question number 1 (or 2 or 3 or ...you get the picture)” followed by the word “question” one last time. Then the question is actually read. The first time the quizmaster says question is a sign for all the quizzers to be quiet and listen. When the quizmaster says ‘question’ the third time, each quizzer must be still and keep the magic lights from turning on. Quizzers take this ritual seriously. So seriously in fact, that when I want my daughters’ attention (all three of them are top-notch quizzers) I simply announce in a rather grand and imposing voice, “Question” and then enjoy the hush that spreads over the hubbub of daily life and the intense gaze that my girls direct my way.

The quizmaster begins to read the question and when he is finished, the quizzers can jump and attempt to answer the question in the order they jumped. Unlike a contestant on Jeopardy, Bible quizzers can jump before the question is finished being read. This is because quizzers, generally, are more intelligent and much better looking than Jeopardy contestants. When the quizzer prejumps, she guesses at the completion of the question and then answers it, if she has guessed correctly.

If that is not confusing enough, it gets even crazier. The quizzer has twenty seconds to give her answer. If during those twenty seconds she makes a mistake, she can correct it by saying, “correction” and giving the correct answer. When she is done answering, she can wait until either her twenty seconds is over or she can say “finished.” At this point, the quizzer gazes expectantly at the quizmaster and waits for a ruling.

Just before our trip to National quiz finals, I went to conference finals with our team. We quizzed at a camp and each of the meets were held in the cabins. For one of the matches there were not enough chairs and I, fortunately, elected to sit on an empty bunk.

The quizmaster announced “Question, question number 4,” then he paused and said, “question.” The quizzers were quiet and the quizmaster read the question. The first person up was Karlos Dancing-Burger, the son of Ted Dancing-Burger mentioned in my previous post.

Karlos began to rattle off what he thought was an answer. He did not like what he said and announced ‘correction.’ Then he rattled off more, and not liking what he said he announced ‘correction.’ He repeated that process five or six times and each time he dropped lower and lower until he was on his knees hands clasped in front of him almost pleading with the quiz master to rule in his favor.

The quizmaster did not, since Karlos hadn’t given the correct answer. Watching this scene unfold before me, I could barely contain myself. This was one of the most comical scenes in quizzing. Since, however, quizzing is serious, I tried to maintain my decorum and stifled my giggling.

That worked until the next question, which was a four-part question. This meant that there must be four parts to the answer. Karlos jumped up first again. Then he stared blankly and said, “Oh I forgot the first three parts. Ooops, there goes the last part.” He then said “finished” and sat down.

I found this scene to be comical and I started to giggle--silently. Except this time, Karlos turned and saw me turning red, fighting to contain my mirth. He shouted out, “Mr. Distaffen, you look like a leprechaun!”

I found out a few things in that moment. First, while trying to contain my laughter, I could not breathe. Next, I discovered that if you cannot breathe, you pass out.

I awoke to the distant voices of quizzers. Not a single person came to my aid. This is, after all, a tough competition, and the quizzers were not about to be distracted by someone passing out.

Finished.