The Voice of God

The best thing about being a PK in the mid-1990s was Coyotes, a Mexican restaurant at the local mall that  Mom and Dad took us to after Sunday morning church as often as once or twice a month.

We started having Sunday lunches there in 1994 soon after Dad was hired to preach at the passageway church. This was the first time that I can recall us going out to eat on a (semi) regular basis. Before Dad landed that job there wasn't enough money in the budget for that sort of thing.

Coyotes had rather darkly tinted windows. If one stood next to the windows, you could see the mall out of them but no one standing outside could see what was going on inside of the restaurant.

One day, Dad was feeling a little mischievous after he had eaten his dinner. I no longer remember if we were with him during this prank. For the sake of good story-telling, let's assume that we were sitting next to him at the time.

He walked over to the windows and noticed a family friend sitting on a bench just below the window. A family friend who just happened to be a Catholic priest.

Dad leaned over and, in a booming voice, said, "[priest-friend], this is God!"

Our startled priest-friend jumped up and looked around to see who was calling him by name.

Again Dad said, "[priest-friend], this is God!" The story grows a little fuzzy at this point, although I think Dad might have begun to describe what our friend was wearing that day. Or maybe he said something like, "I see you sitting on that bench!"

Our priest-friend didn't know what to do. He continued looking around, trying to figure out who was talking to him.

Soon after this, Dad walked out to the mall and admitted to him that it was a prank. That he was, in fact, not the voice of God.   ;)

(photo credit.)