Skip to main content

We All Want a Scooby Snack


I mentioned yesterday that my kids sailed with me back to my childhood when we discovered Scooby-Doo Mystery Incorporated. It has been an entertaining jaunt, one I'm glad my kids have had an opportunity to experience. After all, my childhood worked out well for me. (Shout out to my mom!) So if my kids can get the same upbringing I did, they should end up alright as well. Now if I can only convince the police my kids will be fine riding free in the back of a conversion van, their childhood would be complete. 


Anyways, the Scooby-Doo cartoons have recently got me thinking about people and the Church. 

We are creatures of habit. For starters, my Saturday mornings feel better somehow now that I can tune in and see the Mystery Machine tooling around town. But the show itself offers many constants. Honestly, the only thing that changed in the 70's version of Scooby-Doo was the villain, but even then some things stayed very much the same.

  • The mystery was always a person with a mask...
  • ...but the gang was always scared. You'd think they would have eventually caught on.
  • Scooby and Shaggy were always scared and hungry.
  • Velma was always losing her glasses. Seriously, can we just get her some contacts?
  • And Fred and Daphne were always blissfully unaware that they belonged together.
Except for that last one, not much has changed with the newest edition for the Scooby series. The mysteries may have changed but not the fact that it will take half an episode for the gang to use Scooby and Shaggy as bait to catch the bad guys. 

We become habitual in our spiritual lives as well. From wanting to get to our regular pew to being comfortable with when we stand and sit during a worship service, our natural inclination is to do what we have always done. But just as Scooby never seems to get more snacks, we also lack the ability to grow in our faith when we decide to keep on doing the same things we have always done, despite our penchant for wanting better results. 

We can update the script all we want. But until we admit that something is inherently broken in the system and allow God to lead us into lasting change, the seemingly solvable mysteries will continue. Perhaps we should be allowing some teenagers to meddle with our lives. Insert close friends for teenagers and exchange accountability for meddling and we may just lose the mask and solve this mystery. 

That idea is worth a Scooby snack. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Accountable

I recently officiated a wedding. The ceremony was simple, lovely, and ended with another couple professing to keep the covenant of marriage. But it all started with a clarification...from me. At our first premarital counseling session, as I have done with every couple I have agreed to marry, I clarified a couple of matters. First, I officiate Christian weddings, where both spouses-to-be are professing Christians. I firmly believe that marriage is difficult enough, without adding disagreements about God into the mix. Second, as a minister of Jesus Christ, I believe the pastor’s role in a wedding is to represent the blessing of God on that union. So we have several sessions of premarital counseling where we discuss married life. It’s not that I have this imaginary card in my head, with a picture of me on the front and my stats on the back. (You know, like a baseball card.) Ok, I do picture cards. Pastor cards! And being a competitive guy, I want my stats to look good. The number of coupl
Post a Comment
Read more

Patience

I am more than halfway through the last year of dropping one of my children off at school. It's my eighth grade daughter, for anyone keeping track of my family.  See, next year she will be at the high school, and her brother will drive her. He says that it's not cool for seniors to drive their freshman sister to school, but I bet it's cooler than being dropped off by your mom in a minivan.  So rather than groan about this daily responsibility, I've been reminiscing about what the drop-off line used to look like, way back in elementary school. Once our children were about halfway through their elementary years, the drop-off line became a test of patience.  Do you know which group you do not want to get caught behind in the parent drop-off line at an elementary school? The kindergartners. These little ones are barely able to walk, but now we put them in the high-pressure situation of trying to unbuckle their seat-belt, grab their backpack (which might be as tall as they a
Post a Comment
Read more

Jury Duty

I was recently summoned to jury duty. I know, groan. Except I didn't. I had never experienced it before and was curious to see what it was like.   When the day to report arrives, they separate you into groups, asking various questions to decide if you will be selected to serve. Do you know the accused? Do you have conflicts that would keep you from serving? Can you stay focused?  I wanted to answer well, if only because my kids kept wishing me luck the day before, telling me they hoped I made the team. After all, who wants to be rejected? It occurred to me that there are things you probably shouldn’t say right away if you’re wanting to serve on a jury. I know, I know, people don’t typically want to serve on a jury. But that list didn’t seem nearly as humorous to me. Here are the things you probably shouldn’t say if you want to be selected for jury. I hold myself in contempt. You can’t handle the truth. We find the defendant guilty. I believe the judge looks pretty in his robe. I’d
Post a Comment
Read more