Adiv and the Bearded Giant

A product of the "Yakoba" clan, I shifted gears and steered towards the CSI groove quite early. My mother who was responsible for this shift, marketed church to us with the following; shorter services in English, beautiful hymns, and simple sermons. However, what appealed the most was that we could sit through the service, jumping up only to sing a lovely hymn, or during a reading from the Bible. Hadn't we endured years of attending long services in syriac, amidst people wearing solemn faces singing tunes that sounded far from joyous? Then we'd get to sit every now and then, but those brief interludes ended as quickly as they came.

Anyway, my brother and I spent little time praying. Through separated in Church by our mother, we managed several giggles and serious conversations that centered around the skin on some unsuspecting individual's neck. Then my brother would feign the need to pee, and we'd eventually leave with a triumphant expression plastered on our faces.

As we got older, things changed. I began enjoying service, and I now knew quite a lot of the hymns. I began praying each Sunday for a wonderful new week, and when we moved to a bigger CSI church, the pastor sealed my relationship with the church, with his interesting sermons. However, it was a cousin's wedding that got me to declare that I wanted to have a CSI wedding too. That is just what I got.
I will refrain from bragging about our beautiful wedding service again, but I must confess I was thrilled the long drawn services in a Jacobite church were over.

After our wedding, Ro and I went to church whenever we could; and after A's birth we decided to initiate him into church on Easter Sunday. No, we didn't sneak out hurridly, muttering apologies under our breath. Instead we sat through the entire service, singing to an ecstatic A who made his own attempts at singing like his Dad.
A loved the service, and he was blissfully oblivious to his mother's inherited "yakoba" heritage.

So when a Yakoba acchen made an appearance two days ago, I saw the look of shock on his teeny face. The CSI acchens are by far less intimidating to look at. They sport kind, clean shaven smiles (most of them), unlike their Yakoba counterpart. The beard caught A's fancy, but he also seemed like he was deciding whether to cry or endure the Yakoba Acchen's visit. The acchen attempted to be befriend A who stared ahead at him with feigned courage. Not getting a smile, the acchen then turned his attention on us. "Why is he in pampers?" That began a lecture on how we were taking the easy way out by putting a baby in pampers. Wasn't child rearing meant to be a difficult task? So why would we put him in pampers. "Put him in cloth nappies" he declared. "Unless ofcourse you were taking him out", he added as an after thought. After this lecture that seemed to go on forever, he eventually put his hand on A's forehead to pray. "Now he'll cry", I thought. But as always A surprised us again. That gesture led A into thinking that this beared giant was a friend. Thinking it was a game, he reached out and pulled the Acchen's sleeve. He continued tugging at his sleeve, till the poor Acchen was forced to cut short his long prayer. The CSI acchen hadn't interested A half as much. He'd merely smiled at the CSI acchen. He barely even noticed the CSI acchen's hand on his head during his blessing. Was it the cool beard that caught his fancy? Maybe!