"Jesus Christ!" Monty spits as we lug equipment from his truck into The Sand Bar, "You look like you got Hep-C!"It's true my skin is a florescent yellow and my blue eyes swim in yellow.
"Mother of God," Elisa Dunnibeier exclaims, "you're green!"
Aside from looking bad, I feel awful and have to sit throughout worship that morning but it's not just me.
Monty's off kilter about something. Gordon's emphysema is flaring up and as he blows the harmonica he explodes into fits of coughing. Eric's got band aids all over his fingers as he plays his guitar. Only perpetually good nature David Dunniebier, our bass player seems the same.
Lead guitarist Chip is off in Tennessee visiting his mother and Davy, the drummer, has disappeared as drummers often do. If he's not back by next Sunday we'll start to worry.
I didn't know then but it was the Sunday my pancreatic cancer came out in Bar Church.
My protective wife Sarah is mad as Hell because I'm too sick to go but, like most clergy, I have a morbid suffering servant complex baked in giant ego that God can't possibly succeed without me.
Yet in spite of everything wrong, something Holy happens and ... Gordo finds enough breath to blow magic ... Eric finds a voice fuller than his rich baritone already is and plays perfect guitar through band aids ... David, who never sings harmony, sets up and sings perfectly.
And I swear, tiny pillars of fire rested atop each of Monty's stubby fingers, and he played lead guitar like we've never heard him before or since and ... the Holy Spirit settles in.
Bar Church was crazy packed that day.
Towards the end of the video, you see Monty smile at me, as we all briefly comprehend, we joined the choir of Angels for a bit.
The song is "Clouds", Zach Zobiech's masterpiece of hope after diagnoses with cancer.
I fell down, down, down into this dark and lonely hole.
There was no one to care about me any more.
I needed a way to climb out and grab hold.
One the edge you were sitting there, holding a rope.
When Sarah and I agreed Bar Church would become a major part of our lives, I felt this was the song that says it all about who we are as a church.
The "you sitting there holding a rope" is Sarah of course ... or God ... maybe the communion of Saints ... certainly Sarah ... certainly God ... Lord only knows who else?
Today, even months later, we know it's pancreatic cancer I have and though, thankfully I'm not yellow this morning, Sarah and I have massive life changes we're managing and so, we resigned from Bar Church a few days ago.
It'll be fine.
It's bigger than Samuel Adams ever was and certainly much larger than me.
But we wanted to thank you all for the past, almost seven years of Church in a Bar and daily exchanges on this Face Book page.
I've grabbed hold of the hope with plans to fly a little higher.
Our prayers are, you do too.
Love,
Micheal and Sarah
