The shelf that holds your Bible in the bathroom. A love letter.
Dec 8th by JonDear shelf,
I don’t even know where to start this letter, you long rectangular piece of wood attached to the wall above the urinals in the bathroom at church, you.
I saw you just last weekend after the worship service, and I thought to myself, “There you are. You’re great.” I looked at your ample shelf, a flat surface that seems to say, “Hey, got a heavy Bible? Here, let me hold that for you. Go ahead, I’ll shoulder that burden while you’re in the bathroom.”
I think about you sometimes during the week when I’m at work. That’s when I miss you the most. You’re not there, there’s no shelf for me to put my work notebook on. I have two options, place it on the counter by the sink, which is inevitably a wet swamp of bathroom grossness or do that awkward chicken wing thing and clamp one arm tightly against my body and try to stay perfectly still so that the notebook doesn’t slowly slide out of my grasp and fall into the urinal.
That doesn’t happen at church though. At church, you’re there. And you’re so brave. You don’t just hold small Bibles, you open your arms to thick encyclopedia, 19 pound life application models. Car keys? Bring it. A coffee cup? Go ahead, get your shelf on.
Do girls have a shelf in their bathroom too? Do you have a counterpart that holds purses? Is there a stall version of you providing service across the hall to the ladies? So many questions!
Is there anything you can’t do? If you ever start dating the crock pot, the other source of my church associated love, I hope you two crazy kids decide to have children. Can you imagine that combination? A long flat crock pot, a trough if you will, that offered delicious casseroles to you in between church and Sunday School in the bathroom?
OK, maybe that wouldn’t work. You should probably stay single, like Paul.
But regardless of who you date, you’ll always have a special place in my heart.
Side hugs, Razzle Dazzle and Bibles that don’t get wet,
Jon
Comments
"A long flat crock pot, a trough if you will, that offered delicious casseroles to you in between church and Sunday School in the bathroom?" Completley brilliant. But I can just see Chuck Colson's Christianity Today article now, "Bathroom Cassaroles, Can the Evangelical Vision Survive?"
I have never seen a shelf in any women's washroom that I've ever been in – how lovely that would be!! I have even encountered several stalls where the necessary door hook has also been absent, in which case I put my belongings on top of the toilet paper dispenser, if it's one of the nice big ones with a flat surface. If the TP holder is small or doesn't have a flat surface, then you get to try and perform a balancing act!
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This made me laugh just as much as the letter from the Lost and Found Bible. Go ahead and get your shelf on? Priceless!
St. Louis church bathrooms are SO far behind. I must move because we don't have such beautiful things. My goodness! Or maybe I don't go to the right church…
Will the 666 post be a Serious Wednesday post, or will you be making an exception this week?
I go to church in a high school and there is a tiny shelf that I do use, but sadly, most of the stall doors don't latch and the church has to supply us with soap and paper towels…which really makes me question the FL school system at large.
ok, so at last i'm taking a break from all the lurking to actually comment. i have a post idea and since i'm whittling away at all the archives, i don't know if you've done this one. "Bible college classes/women's books that think that the best training for a Christian woman/pastor's wife is to instruct her in the fine art of hospitality/use of chargers underneath dinner plates." wow, i had to physically restrain myself from using multiple quotation marks within that quotation! just a thought, Jon, since i think the best training for a Christian woman/pastor's wife doesn't involve becoming the cheerleader to his hero. Love your work with all my heart that's not already devoted to the sweet baby Jesus.
Great post. This is my first time here and I like your writing style. I am subscribed.
One thing I would like to see is free coffee dispensers connected to the pew in front of me. That way I can stay buzzed while sitting through a sermon.
I've thought this too! I always want more, but I don't want to get up in the middle of the sermon….hmmmm
I need to get one of these installed in my own home.
Now that I think about it, my church doesn't have those. Wow, I should recommend them. I know the convenience.
-Marshall Jones Jr.
women's bathrooms don't have a shelf, but we do have a hook to hang our purses. it is necessary to carry a large purse whereupon to balance one's artfully embroidered Thomas Kincaid fanny pack clad Holy Bible with accompanying Biblia Hebraica so one may check the accuracy of the pastor's Hebrew translation. no small feat, i tell you.
My church actually had a nice little couch room for the ladies, and I think guys got a small shelf for their bibles.
It is worth noting that men seldmon have to nurse children.
My current church bathroom has no Bible shelf. I have seriously considered a midnight stealth operation just to install one… just have to figure out how to disable the alarm.
There is a nice shelf in all the ladies bathrooms in my home church, even the one with the couch and stuff for weddings. It also has hooks from it to hang purses. Mostly, I appreciate that the church bathroom is the only public bathroom I ever use in which I'm not afraid of getting some weird disease, as I know the people who clean it personally, lol.