April’s Begun
I managed today to evade any attempts to ensnare me in April Fool’s shenanigans. When I look back at some of the jokes I played on people in the past, I am embarrassed. I am also grateful that I was never the victim of some of the more cruel jokes people play on this day. Some of the cruelty is unintentional, but it’s wise to remember that practical jokes can sometimes assume a life of their own, and once they do, it’s difficult to euthanize them. I’m thinking of a woman with whom I used to work. She made a point of telling everyone in the office, “Do not play any April Fool’s jokes on me, please.” She was so adamant about this, it piqued my interest, so I asked her about it. She told me that some years before, on April 1st, she overheard some coworkers plotting to “really get” her with a prank. A couple of hours later, she received a phone call from a man purporting to be a police officer. He asked her if her mother’s name was so-and-so and if she lived at such-and-such an address. He said to her, “There’s been a car wreck and –“She immediately grew very annoyed and told the man off, and hung up on him. Just a minute later, the man called again. He told her that officers were enroute to talk to her. Within minutes, the police indeed arrived and came to her office and asked her to sit down. Her mother had been killed while crossing the road in front of her house to retrieve mail from the mailbox. So every year on April 1st, this woman lived in mortal terror that someone was going to try and prank her.
April 1st also happens to be the anniversary of the birth of my late father-in-law. He was a great and noble man, and he was nobody’s fool. It pains me to think that his birthday was marked every year by sophomoric foolishness.
On the flip side….today’s world is so humorless, and people are so hypersensitive about insults, real and imagined, that April Fool’s has probably lost much of its former luster. Too much opportunity for litigation. Small loss, I think.
***
A woman at work today told me that she had received some bad news about her health. After she described the situation, I replied, “I’m very sorry.”
She looked mildly annoyed and said, “Why are you sorry? You didn’t do it.”
I had just this morning asked during my morning prayers for patience and wisdom, but when the woman made her reply, patience departed the scene. Her reply is one that I’ve heard a lot in recent years, and it angers me on several lessons. I was determined to edify her, and I fear I was not very gracious.
“I didn’t apologize to you, ma’am,” I said. “I said I am sorry to hear the news you received. Do you not understand the distinction?”
She dropped her eyes and mumbled, “You’re right.”
I wanted to continue on and lecture her about how to be gracious, and how unwise it is to walk around with a collection of supposedly snappy rejoinders in one’s head for occasions when someone offers sympathy or empathy or other human responses to stress and sadness. But I did not. I later asked God’s forgiveness for my quick temper…and I also asked that the woman might be led to pass on my admonition the next time someone says something equally thoughtless to her.
***
Reading about Mother Teresa recently, I began thinking about the concept of hospitality. The modern Christian church, especially the Reformed/Presbyterian background out of which I came in my journey to Catholicism, seems particularly prone to erroneous thinking about hospitality. While the biblical examples as well as examples from the saints and from church history show hospitality to be the offering of physical, material, and spiritual comfort to those in need, many churches clearly believe that the term means “inviting someone to my house for a luxurious meal.” I have heard so many young church people, especially women, talk at length about the importance of “showing hospitality to visitors at the church.” Watching some of the interactions has led me to conclude that some visitors are more equal than others. It’s interesting that most of the recipients of such “hospitality” are almost always very much like those doing the inviting. The very, very few times I saw a person who appeared poor or lonely visit a Presbyterian church, I don’t recall the Professional Hospitality Extenders (PHE’s) falling all over themselves to invite such a person home after the service. “Hospitality” seems too often like just another social clique. Shame on us.
***
The night air is chilly here, and the moon is a bleak hook hanging in the black sky. Coyotes are calling down in the valley, and my possums are out front enjoying their supper of leftovers. Have I ever mentioned that possums, reputed to be willing to eat anything, will turn up their pointy little noses at fancy marinated olives from Trader Joes? We received a packet of such olives as a gift last year, and when we finally sampled them, my wife and I both commenced with the dry heaves and pronounced them as possum fare. It gives me no pleasure to announce that those olives stayed right where they were until the elements finally melted them down into the grass. I feel very strongly that they would have reacted similarly to an offering of grits with shrimp, or cheese, or anything except butter & sugar on them.
***
“Natures which have had to struggle are of great use in the world, especially in these times. Someday they will recognize this after having long thought their sufferings and efforts of no use.”
from a letter written by Abbe de Tourville
~ S.K. Orr