I’m impatiently waiting for this other stone to roll away…

This morning, America — the Jesuit magazine to which I subscribe online — had a headline that definitely grabbed my attention:

What the Catholic Church can learn from the resurrection of Barnes & Noble

And I was all like, say WHAT?

I haven’t seen any such resurrection — I mean the bookstore one. I just Googled to see if it came back when I wasn’t looking. I see no such signs or wonders.

As y’all know, my favorite store of any kind in the entire universe was the Barnes & Noble on Harbison. And they closed it, and replaced it with some stupendously unappealing thing called a “Nordstrom Rack,” thereby adding further insult to the injury. I went in there once. They didn’t even offer coffee, as I recall.

If my store is coming back, let me know, and I’ll run there almost as fast as the Apostle John ran to the empty tomb. (I say “almost” because he was young and spry, and, well, that was a much bigger deal. Infinitely bigger, if you will. But I still want my store back.)

Just roll away that stone, and watch me. I want my store back…

(I say “almost” because John was young and spry, and, well, that was a much bigger deal. Infinitely bigger, if you will. But I still want my store back.)

5 thoughts on “I’m impatiently waiting for this other stone to roll away…”

  1. Brad Warthen Post author

    As for what the writer was saying the Church could learn from Barnes & Noble, well… I’ll go back and read that when I get a few minutes.

    I was just reacting to the headline. I do that sometimes…

  2. Carol+Smith

    I think you’d definitely move faster than Paul since he wasn’t in on Jesus’ resurrection. Our Barnes and Noble is still very much alive!.

    1. Brad Warthen Post author

      Ohmygosh, I have no idea why I typed “Paul.” I was thinking of John. I even went to Wikipedia to look up references to “the disciple whom Jesus loved” and check out the thinking on whether that was indeed the apostle himself, or someone else who wrote that Gospel. Which of course led to wondering again whether he was just being modest by not naming himself, or shamelessly bragging that Jesus loved him best.

      Saul of Tarsus wasn’t even on my mind. Weird.

      Maybe next time I’ll type “George” or “Ringo”…

      In any case, as I think I’ve mentioned before, there is much that troubles me in John’s Gospel (especially the constant reference to “the Jews” as some outside, or even menacing, “other” — when everybody in the story, aside from an odd Roman here and there, is Jewish), but I’ve always loved that cinematic description of John and Peter running to the tomb…

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