"And I heard a sound coming from the heavens; it sounded like angels singing..."

I don't particularly like our new guest pastor at church. He tries too hard to be funny. He makes assumptions about the congregation and then seems shocked when they are wrong ("How many farmers do we have today?" "None?! I thought this was the country!") He acts as if we should replace our projection system because he can't get the remote to work for his powerpoint presentation. He once stopped a sermon for two very long minutes while a woman tried desperately to turn off her two-way radio. She was the bus driver for the urban children's group we had visiting us for the day. She was mortified and embarrassed and he made it 100% worse for her.

This was the first Sunday in two weeks we've been at church. I am still fighting this cold something awful and spent most of the Sunday School hour trying not to sniffle too much, but trying not to blow my nose too loudly, either. My pocketbook is full of tissues, old and new, and cough drops. I was grateful for the singing during the church service so I could blow my nose and save the people in front of me several long minutes of listening to me sniffle.

Just as the guest pastor, Dr. H., started his sermon, my cell phone rang. I normally turn it off for the service, and even if I forget, there's normally a visual reminder before the service starts on the announcements they project. But there hadn't been a reminder, and I had been so concerned with my cold and my sniffling that I had totally forgotten about my phone. The good news is that is was nestled in my pocketbook amongst all the tissues and such which kept is mostly muffled. The bad news is that being buried as such, it was nearly impossible to find to shut off quickly. I did finally find it in there amongst the Kleenex and shut it off. I am certain my face was crimson, although I tried to remain calm and collected. I'm fairly sure there were few in the congregation who even knew where the sound came from. As I regained my senses and looked ahead at Dr. H., I realized he had stopped speaking and was trying to figure out the sound. He said, "I guess that was someone's cell phone?" and paused as if I would apologize in the middle of his sermon (I held my tongue; sorry as I was, I wasn't about to speak during the sermon.) He went on with things, not knowing exactly where the disturbance had come from.

And at that moment, I silently said a prayer of gratitude for my choice in cell phone ring tones. However inappropriate to have it ring during the service, at least my phone played the "Hallelujah Chorus".