A good Christian is round and orange
This was forwarded from a friend of mine by a one of her relatives. It's a bit late for Halloween, but I pass it on in the spirit of ecumenism:
Many years ago, a veritable mob of extended family (by which I mean about seven or eight), including The Monkey, were gathered in my grandparents' living room. We were all having a blast catching up with one another, by which I mean sitting in silence listening to the ticking of literally dozens of antique clocks in the room (a manifestation of my grandfather's raging OCD, but that's another story). The Monkey was seated on the couch directly across from the fireplace, which had a large vase of flowers in front of it because it was summer. She delicately cleared her throat, which was the signal for everyone else to perk up and get ready to hear whatever warm and jolly thing she was about to say. And what she said was, "I hope everyone is enjoying the flowers as much as I am." After which she relapsed into silence and we resumed listening to the ticking of clocks, all secretly counting the minutes until we could decently excuse ourselves and (in my case, anyway) head for the nearest bar.
Being a Christian is like being a pumpkin. God lifts you up, takes you in, and washes all the dirt off of you. He opens you up, touches you deep inside and scoops out all the yucky stuff—including the seeds of doubt, hate, greed, etc. Then He carves you a new smiling face and puts His light inside you to shine for all the world to see. This was passed on to me from another pumpkin. Now it is your turn to pass it to a pumpkin. I liked this enough to send it to all the pumpkins in my patch.As long we we're on the topic of autumn, I've got to say that I've never enjoyed the fall foliage as much as I have this year. They (or I) don't call it Leafy Suburb for nothing. Even though I grew up here, I was far too unobservant and/or cynical to care how beautiful the maples get. In fact I always felt a well concealed contempt for adults who would exclaim, "Oh! Would you LOOK at the colors on that tree! Simply gorgeous!" reminds me of the ultimate expression of delight over flora as expressed by the late great Aunt Dorothy, a.k.a. the Monkey. She was actually my great aunt and was very much in the flinty New England style, with the added bonus of being blatantly racist despite the fact that for years she dated (gasp!) a JEW. Of course her brothers wouldn't dram of letting her marry him. The object of her hatred was blacks as in cheery statements such as "I think the races should be kept separate!" and "Sending a black to college is like sending a gorilla to Sunday school." She was a well educated person with sophisticated tastes who lived in New York City for most of her adult life., Go figure. But I digress.
Many years ago, a veritable mob of extended family (by which I mean about seven or eight), including The Monkey, were gathered in my grandparents' living room. We were all having a blast catching up with one another, by which I mean sitting in silence listening to the ticking of literally dozens of antique clocks in the room (a manifestation of my grandfather's raging OCD, but that's another story). The Monkey was seated on the couch directly across from the fireplace, which had a large vase of flowers in front of it because it was summer. She delicately cleared her throat, which was the signal for everyone else to perk up and get ready to hear whatever warm and jolly thing she was about to say. And what she said was, "I hope everyone is enjoying the flowers as much as I am." After which she relapsed into silence and we resumed listening to the ticking of clocks, all secretly counting the minutes until we could decently excuse ourselves and (in my case, anyway) head for the nearest bar.
Comments