Quite often, I will wake up in the middle of the night and struggle to go back to sleep. Some nights I get up and turn on the TV; I know that is not what the sleep experts tell us to do, but it gets my mind settled and I usually can get back to sleep. Two shows I frequently watch are Frazier and Cheers. Cheers introduced us to the character of Frazier Crane, the self-important psychologist. Most of you probably remember Cheers, it was one of the highest rated shows on television in the 1980's. It had other memorable characters; Cliff the know-it-all mailman, Norm the usually unemployed accountant, Carla the mouthy waitress, Woody the naïve farm-boy. It's popularity arose from the fact that these people really cared for one another; they accepted each other- flaws and all. The theme song put it this way, “Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name; and they're always glad you came...our troubles are all the same.”
Kinda sounds like what we do here on Sunday mornings. We know each others' names, we know who is here and who isn't. We have an assortment of characters gathering together, caring for each other, accepting each other- flaws and all.