It’s Sunday morning and the faithful have gathered. At Hometown Friends Church we are looking at John 12 which includes the words of Christ, “unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” Horticulture is the illustration, not the point.

I can’t explain the unrelated things that come to mind during this weekly hour in the pew. The sudden realization of the reason behind a phone call at Barclay Press last week was one of those things this morning. My assumption now is that the call had a connection with the Board of Trustees meeting this weekend here at Quaker College. The phone request was for a fax of an article written long ago by a Friends pastor and former college board member. The topic of the article was alcoholism. It’s no secret that a controversial item on the board agenda has to do with whether rules and signed statements should be used to create the moral high ground of employees maintaining total abstinence from alcohol.

As I said, this didn’t come from John 12 but blew through my mind from somewhere else.