Storyteller's World

Quite pleased with myself after this morning's Family Service, at which many of the regular congregation were away on holiday, so we had reserve musicians, plus a baptism, plus having to cope with the parable of the Rich Fool.

Fortunately My Friend Moriarty came to the rescue. For those who haven't met him before, he looks very like my identical twin brother, but is everything I'm not: suave, debonair, handsome, rich, adventurous etc. When his home and the whole of London are on fire, he puts everything he has and loves in his hot air balloon: house, car, money, books, wife, baby, friends, books and possessions, and flies to safety. But as the balloon is threatened again and again with disaster, he has to make the choice of throwing something out of the basket. With the congregation's help, we got down to the things that really mattered - and stopped. But then had the message that, in life, everything we have and love will be taken from us; unless we have God, and have lived for him rather than all those other things, we will have nothing at all, when that happens. Came across quite powerfully, I think.