Yureka! My sons found common ground tonight – “I don’t want to go to church tonight!” they whined. “Why do we have to go to church on a Monday night?” “How long will we have to be there?” “Are you serious, Mom?”
I didn’t care, though, because at least they were agreeing on something. Tonight’s mission at the parish was about prayer and maybe God was already answering mine even with a humorous slant. Fr. Oscar Lukefahr, author of “We Believe: A Survey of the Catholic Faith”, “We Pray: Living in God’s Presence”, “The Search for Happiness” and many others is leading our parish mission this entire week. Tonight’s topic was on how to pray with God’s will in mind.
A great style that Fr. Lukefahr has is using humor that reaches out to all generations. The kids complained and whined in the beginning but once they remembered he was the priest that spoke at the weekend Mass then they were excited to join me. As the evening progressed I could sense that Seth was getting fidgety and bored, and Ryan was leaning over with a dazed look in his eyes. We didn’t have much longer in the evening and I was enjoying the points Fr. Lukefahr hit when he began to tell another joke that detailed a man’s talking bird. I can’t recall the joke in detail but I can tell you the focus of the joke was this bird would introduce itself as a ‘swinger’ to a pious man. This pious man proclaimed that this bird was a detriment to society and insisted it needed to have better company with his two birds that do nothing but recite the rosary all day. However, when the bird came to the pious man’s house to be in better company and introduced itself as a ‘swinger’ to the other two birds one of the birds stops saying the rosary, looks at the other and says “We can stop praying, our prayers have been answered.” (or roughly something along these lines)
Now…that entire joke can be taken WAY out of context ESPECIALLY because I did not tell it fully and/or in the realm of why Fr. Lukefahr told it to make a point on prayer, and to be funny. My point in repeating the jest of the punch line is the fact that walking away from tonight’s mission in prayer Ryan (whom I thought was asleep through most of the hour event) asked me, “What is a swinger?”
Ugh…
….mmmm….
hummmm…..
Finally I came up with something, “When someone likes to date two people at one time because they can’t decide who they like the most.” Thankfully he gave me this look like, “Oh, ok, whatever, I don’t get it.”
I’ll give it to him though, he was listening. He was just picking and choosing what he was hearing. When Fr. Lukefahr made the comment that ‘God helps those who help themselves” and explained how we must study to get that good grade on a test, I poked Ryan on the shoulder and he looked completely oblivious, “Huh? What?”
How often do we pick and choose not necessarily the things we listen to but what we choose to hear? Sometimes we’d rather choose to tune into the gossip, things we know that are better left not understanding, than listen to what we really need to hear because then it means once we hear it we have to be accountable, and obligated to grow because then we’ve been enlightened.
Ah, but that takes effort. 😉
There was a lot said tonight that encouraged me to ‘wake up’ and realize how precious every little word spoken, comment given, lecture proclaimed can touch each person in various ways. I learned that if we were to all pray for God’s will then we’d find the peace on earth that is a commodity these days.
I also learned I don’t want to pick and choose hearing what God is saying to me…and if I don’t listen with both ears I might miss out on the joke.
Blessings
Shannon