large, flat, wooden tabletop to the side of his pickup truck, cut
five to six medium-sized holes in it, and draped it with a curtain.
Sticking up through those holes was a family of wiggly, happy,
hand puppets. Kids were standing in line to climb up into the
truck bed to try bopping the puppets on the head with a big,
cushy hammer before the figures ducked and disappeared
down the hole and out of sight.
Whack-a-Mole—the church parking lot version.One little guy, however, no more than five years old, got
tired of waiting. Bored with the shenanigans, he slipped out of
line, ambled around to the side of the truck for a better look,
and then—for whatever curious reason—grabbed a handful of
that curtain and yanked it clean off the playing surface.
Suddenly, instead of six cutesy puppets swaying playfully in
the evening air, there were three grown adults with both arms
poking up through bare wood, a puppet on each hand, their
identities immediately revealed.
Even the under-ten crowd got the message that night: there
is something you can’t see working underneath the surface,
controlling and manipulating what you can.