Now, there my family and I had strolled in casually dressed and fashionably late. Still, we managed to squeeze into one of the pews between one family and another. However, rather uncomfortably so, as a younger gentleman next to me elected to take up an entire person's worth of space by sitting a drawstring bag on the pew seemingly indifferent to me and my family's plight.
I get it. He might have other things on his mind, and personal space in this life was not the topic of today's sermon. The problems of this world will pass and so on and so forth. ... Still.
All I needed to be comfortable was four inches in his direction. And that's when a curious thought crossed my mind. This is my wife's church, not mine. She's Catholic. And old boy's gonna have to kneel at some point and when he does bap-diddly-smack goes the little gunny sack!
Well, there I waited, stalking my prey as even a Basset Hound would an unattended hotdog plate at a family reunion. And I tell ya, just before I could do something so pettily blasphemous he's gotta get up to go to the restroom.
And in that moment, I gazed up towards the heavens thinking to myself, "I see what ya did there."
I mean, sure, I still gave the little black bag a firm little four-inch nudge to the left the second he was out of sight, but I didn't have to do it covertly while everyone was in submission to the Lord. So, what's the take away here? God works in mysterious ways? Naw, that's been way too overdone. That everyone should give everybody else at least four inches? That's good. I mean, everybody is always up in everybody else's business, and just a little extra space makes the world a better place. Again, good but not great.
Do we often think we know suffering without considering what suffering really is? Yup, that's the ticket! 'Cause regardless of what anyone's thoughts may be on organized religion, church, afterlife, theism, &c. I believe we can all agree on one thing. The image of a person griping about cramped setting while there is literally an effigy of someone nailed to a cross no more than twenty feet ahead speaks volumes about society today.
And if that weren't bad enough, while two vastly different situations, both individuals are making pretty much the same face.
Now, while I really hate to be the poster boy for this, there is a point here (come on, I did refer to tight seating as my family's "plight," and y'all didn't even catch that). But, I guess what I'm saying is that if you feel life is squeezing your behind a bit too tightly (inappropriately?) then maybe, just maybe, consider what folks two thousand, a thousand, a hundred, y'know we will just do fifty, fifty years ago might have endured and what it really means to suffer. And, perhaps, then you'll really, really start to figure out things aren't that bad.
And lo! As a wise philosopher once spake, “Don't grumble, give a whistle,”
Lenwood S. Sharpe, Director
Lumberwoods, Unnatural History Museum
Parts Unknown, The Woods, U.S.A.
Lenwood S. Sharpe, Director
Lumberwoods, Unnatural History Museum
Parts Unknown, The Woods, U.S.A.
