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doesn’t lookquite right. Maybe you ought to come home.”
    It’s a three-block walk from the meetinghouse to home, which I covered in just under two minutes. My wife was standing on the sidewalk, her hands on her hips, inspecting the house from a variety of angles.
    â€œThat doesn’t look like the right color,” she said as I approached. “What do you think?”
    I studied our home. “I think you’re right. Hey, Ernie, what color of paint is that?”
    â€œEggshell.”
    I groaned. “That’s the wrong color. I told you ecru.”
    Ernie climbed down the ladder. “I had some eggshell left over from Hester Gladden’s house. With all the trees in your front yard, people won’t be able to tell the difference.”
    â€œI can tell the difference,” my wife yelled from the sidewalk.
    I was in a predicament. If I made Ernie mad, he’d pack his paintbrushes and leave. Still, I didn’t think it was asking too much for Ernie to paint the upper half of our house the same color as the lower half. I lowered my voice conspiratorially, draped my arm around Ernie, and steered him out of earshot of my wife. “Personally, Ernie, I think it looks just fine. But you know how picky women can be.”
    â€œDon’t I know it,” Ernie said.
    Ernie is forty-two and has never been married, due to the pickiness of women, who for some reason don’t feel romantically inclined toward a man who never shaves his neck.
    â€œDarn women,” Ernie said.
    â€œYou got that right.”
    Now it was us guys standing united against the women of the world. I was halfway home. “We’re probably better off just painting it the way she wants it.”
    Ernie glanced at Barbara. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”
    With the crisis averted, I went in the house for lunch. A grilled cheese and tomato soup with peaches in heavy syrup. My favorite.
    By one o’clock I was back at my desk, working on my sermon. People haven’t been listening as closely to my sermons as they once did. They appear bored. The month before, I had purchased a new book on the writing and delivery of sermons called From Humdrum to Hallelujah! The first chapter concerned itself with the appropriate facial expressions a pastor should employ while preaching. The author advised keeping the eyebrows raised throughout the sermon to convey enthusiasm, the idea being that the congregation won’t be enthusiastic if the minister isn’t.
    The next Sunday, I kept my eyebrows raised during the entire sermon, but only succeeded in giving myself a headache.
    On the walk home, Barbara asked me if anything was wrong with me during my sermon.
    â€œI was trying to appear enthusiastic,” I said.
    â€œYou looked alarmed, like you had to use the bathroom.”
    The book also suggested working personal anecdotes into the sermon that revealed the pastor’s frailties. So while preaching on the text, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” I confessed my struggle with lust.
    Fortunately for me, no one was paying attention except my wife, whose job it is to look enthralled with my every public utterance.But she was less than enthralled with my confession and for the next several days grilled me on the object of my lust. When I said it was her, she snorted. “That shows what you know,” she said. “You can’t lust after your own spouse.”
    â€œYou most certainly can.” I’d looked up the word in the dictionary. “ Lust means to have an intense desire or need for someone or something. Why can’t I have an intense desire or need for you?”
    That mollified her somewhat. The next day I gave From Humdrum to Hallelujah! to Pastor Jimmy of the Harmony Worship Center, hoping it would make his life as miserable as it had my own.
    This is our fourth year back home. All things considered, it’s been a good move. I like