That's it, get an eyeful, folks: Your good pastor is using crutches today on account of a little skiing mishap. (Sheesh!)
Meditations on a Gammy Leg
Father O'Really knocks us off of our PC high horses in this tough-love sermon about the evils of self-righteousness
Injury and disability are not a laughing matter, BUT....
(Good morning, by the way. It's nice to be back in the pulpit. I trust Sister Harper filled my shoes and then some while I was away. Disneyland was wonderful, incidentally. In fact, I'll have a brief slide show for you all tonight after the covered dish supper in the social hall.)
I say it again: Injury and disability are not a laughing matter, BUT....
Having said that, however...
I hope that whenever I am personally injured or disabled, I will be able to keep a sense of humor about it.
Come with me now on the voyage of moral discovery that IS this morning's sermon.
(Our fabulous organist, ladies and gentlemen, right on cue as always: Ms. Annabel Schnitzenfugen! Take a bow, Ann.)
Now then, is everyone ready to hear the exciting personal anecdote from my life that will illustrate today's crucial moral lesson? (Widow Brimley, are you ready? Sister Jenny? Widower Winslow? How about you, Brother John? Hey, wait a minute: Are you sleeping, Brother John? Brother John? Brother John? Are you sleeping, Brother John? My Fair Lady! I mean, honestly now: WAKE UP! I worked hard on today's sermon.)
Right. It was 10 years ago today, give or take, and I was exiting my brother's outdoor Jacuzzi after a 15-minute dip therein. Unfortunately, it was icy cold outside at the time (notwithstanding the 102-degree temperature inside the tub itself) and the steps of the short aluminum ladder, unbeknownst to myself, had become icy with some water that we (my sister, my brother, and I) had inadvertently splashed on them during our toasty aquatic gambols (not that we had been childishly thrashing about, of course, during our restorative soaking, but as Archimedes showed the world ages ago, you're bound to displace SOME water merely in the act of entering such a brim-full vessel).
Long story short, I fell down (and went "boom," as they say) onto the wooden deck the very instant my unsuspecting heel hit the icy step.
Bam!
There followed, of course, the expected cries of sibling solicitude: "Are you okay? What happened? Hey, watch your step!" et cetera...
to which I quickly responded (before I had even had time to justify the statement with experimental proof): "I'm fine!"
And indeed, when I finally managed to stand up (picture a newborn colt rising for the first time, but for some reason wearing a bathing suit: "baggies," in this case) I was able to walk on my own two freezing feet to the nearby sliding deck door that now separated my shivering goose flesh from the promised warmth of towels, hot chocolate, and the ample heat promulgated by a generously set thermostat: ahhhhh!
All's well that ends well, right?
(Are you still sleeping, Brother John? Crminy. What about you, Frere Jacques: Dormez-vous? Hang in there, guys: I'm coming to the moral of my story.)
Anyway, I'm driving home that afternoon, and suddenly my leg starts acting up. I soon realized that (notwithstanding my former sanguine prognosis for the limb in question) I had (at very least) sprained the sucker rather badly thanks to that icy tumble that I took back at the tub.
In fact, when I finally got out on route 70 to get a doughnut at Krispy Kreme, I was positively limping!
Ann, darling: Play another dramatic fanfare, would you? partially to wake people up, and partially to celebrate the fact that I've finally come to my blessed point at long, long last!
(Our fabulous organist, ladies and gentlemen, Annabel Schnitzenfugen! Take a bow, Ann.)
Anyway, I'm walking into Krispy Kreme, right, and I start to get this evil thought in my head: "Hey, now I can get on my moral high-horse and start holding people accountable for how they so much as look at me."
Don't get me wrong, good people: I believe that the public at large DO have a lot to learn about how to react appropriately around obviously injured folks. That said, however, I also believe that injured folks (indeed, "challenged" folks of all kinds, myself included, perhaps, in one or two psychological subcategories) themselves are encouraged these days to have no sense of humor about their own situations and therefore no tolerance for folks who respond to them in a gauche or stereotypically motivated manner.
Can I get a witness here?
And so it was that when I limped into that Krispy Kreme that afternoon, I had a wry smile on my face as I silently contemplated all the indignant things that I could say to the folks around me if I wished to profit from the censorious zeitgeist of the times, as for instance:
To the woman in the green dress who kept looking over in my general direction:
"Yes, I'm over here limping, lady: Go on, get an eyeful!"
To the cashier who took the order of a man who had been waiting to be served for a shorter time than myself:
"Oh, yes, of course: He comes marching up firmly on two feet, and Bingo: You take his order!"
To everybody in general:
"Go on, you guys: say it: You know you want to: PEGLEG, right? Say it!"
Hear me, People: O Hear Me:
I am not trying to ridicule the injured and infirm up in here this morning! (I should think not!) All I'm suggesting to you is that patience, forbearance, and a sense of humor on the part of such sufferers would make the world a nicer place for everybody: themselves included!
Mind you, those of us who have so-called "sound bodies" (at least for the moment in these relatively short and unpredictable lives of ours) do -- I repeat: DO -- have a responsibility to deal with others sensitively according to their various physical and mental conditions and needs. That said, however, the obviously injured (or in some way "challenged") individual has a role to play, too, in creating or modifying the psychological atmosphere that surrounds them, and they (you'll forgive me, I know) should avoid the temptation to get on a moral high-horse by insisting upon some specific politically correct reception everywhere they go. After all, it is this high expectation itself that tends to poison the atmosphere around them from the get-go as folks of good will scramble, as it were, to do the right thing in their presence, (without appearing over-eager to do so, of course) lest they violate some taboo implicit in the latest hypercritical definition of "sensitivity" that has been stern-facedly foisted upon mainstream society by so-called advocates of the afflicted group in question.
Do you see where I'm coming from? (as the jet pilot said to the air traffic controller before making an emergency landing in the fog).
Thankfully, my leg got better within just a few days (it was a simple sprain, after all) -- but I somehow knew when entering that Krispy Kreme (with those devilish thoughts in my head about putting the able-bodied people around me "through their paces," so to speak, with respect to my dogmatic requirements for "sensitivity" on their part) -- I knew that even a long-term injury of this kind would not -- should not -- give me the right to hold my fellows to a standard that even I could not live up to as an "able-bodied" person. Indeed, I looked at it like this: It shouldn't (ultimately, at least) matter HOW they respond to me, provided that their actions show that they meant well.
As Theseus says in commendation of the largely talentless bumpkins who yet have a sincere desire to entertain him at the end of "A Midsummer Night's Dream":
Never anything can be amiss,
When simpleness and duty tender it
(Good morning, by the way. It's nice to be back in the pulpit. I trust Sister Harper filled my shoes and then some while I was away. Disneyland was wonderful, incidentally. In fact, I'll have a brief slide show for you all tonight after the covered dish supper in the social hall.)
I say it again: Injury and disability are not a laughing matter, BUT....
Dramatic pause as minister stalks majestically back and forth behind the pulpit in apparent abstract meditation, fingers pointing skyward, the palms of his hands united in an attitude of prayerful entreaty to You-Know-Whom
Having said that, however...
And here the divine returns suddenly to the microphone, as if fresh on the heels of some revelatory insight
I hope that whenever I am personally injured or disabled, I will be able to keep a sense of humor about it.
Another dramatic pause, as if allowing time for the congregation's intellectual absorption of this morally fraught preamble....
Come with me now on the voyage of moral discovery that IS this morning's sermon.
Dramatic pipe organ fanfare plays
(Our fabulous organist, ladies and gentlemen, right on cue as always: Ms. Annabel Schnitzenfugen! Take a bow, Ann.)
Now then, is everyone ready to hear the exciting personal anecdote from my life that will illustrate today's crucial moral lesson? (Widow Brimley, are you ready? Sister Jenny? Widower Winslow? How about you, Brother John? Hey, wait a minute: Are you sleeping, Brother John? Brother John? Brother John? Are you sleeping, Brother John? My Fair Lady! I mean, honestly now: WAKE UP! I worked hard on today's sermon.)
Right. It was 10 years ago today, give or take, and I was exiting my brother's outdoor Jacuzzi after a 15-minute dip therein. Unfortunately, it was icy cold outside at the time (notwithstanding the 102-degree temperature inside the tub itself) and the steps of the short aluminum ladder, unbeknownst to myself, had become icy with some water that we (my sister, my brother, and I) had inadvertently splashed on them during our toasty aquatic gambols (not that we had been childishly thrashing about, of course, during our restorative soaking, but as Archimedes showed the world ages ago, you're bound to displace SOME water merely in the act of entering such a brim-full vessel).
Long story short, I fell down (and went "boom," as they say) onto the wooden deck the very instant my unsuspecting heel hit the icy step.
Bam!
There followed, of course, the expected cries of sibling solicitude: "Are you okay? What happened? Hey, watch your step!" et cetera...
to which I quickly responded (before I had even had time to justify the statement with experimental proof): "I'm fine!"
And indeed, when I finally managed to stand up (picture a newborn colt rising for the first time, but for some reason wearing a bathing suit: "baggies," in this case) I was able to walk on my own two freezing feet to the nearby sliding deck door that now separated my shivering goose flesh from the promised warmth of towels, hot chocolate, and the ample heat promulgated by a generously set thermostat: ahhhhh!
All's well that ends well, right?
(Are you still sleeping, Brother John? Crminy. What about you, Frere Jacques: Dormez-vous? Hang in there, guys: I'm coming to the moral of my story.)
Anyway, I'm driving home that afternoon, and suddenly my leg starts acting up. I soon realized that (notwithstanding my former sanguine prognosis for the limb in question) I had (at very least) sprained the sucker rather badly thanks to that icy tumble that I took back at the tub.
In fact, when I finally got out on route 70 to get a doughnut at Krispy Kreme, I was positively limping!
Ann, darling: Play another dramatic fanfare, would you? partially to wake people up, and partially to celebrate the fact that I've finally come to my blessed point at long, long last!
Dramatic pipe organ fanfare plays
(Our fabulous organist, ladies and gentlemen, Annabel Schnitzenfugen! Take a bow, Ann.)
Anyway, I'm walking into Krispy Kreme, right, and I start to get this evil thought in my head: "Hey, now I can get on my moral high-horse and start holding people accountable for how they so much as look at me."
Don't get me wrong, good people: I believe that the public at large DO have a lot to learn about how to react appropriately around obviously injured folks. That said, however, I also believe that injured folks (indeed, "challenged" folks of all kinds, myself included, perhaps, in one or two psychological subcategories) themselves are encouraged these days to have no sense of humor about their own situations and therefore no tolerance for folks who respond to them in a gauche or stereotypically motivated manner.
Can I get a witness here?
And so it was that when I limped into that Krispy Kreme that afternoon, I had a wry smile on my face as I silently contemplated all the indignant things that I could say to the folks around me if I wished to profit from the censorious zeitgeist of the times, as for instance:
To the woman in the green dress who kept looking over in my general direction:
"Yes, I'm over here limping, lady: Go on, get an eyeful!"
To the cashier who took the order of a man who had been waiting to be served for a shorter time than myself:
"Oh, yes, of course: He comes marching up firmly on two feet, and Bingo: You take his order!"
To everybody in general:
"Go on, you guys: say it: You know you want to: PEGLEG, right? Say it!"
Hear me, People: O Hear Me:
I am not trying to ridicule the injured and infirm up in here this morning! (I should think not!) All I'm suggesting to you is that patience, forbearance, and a sense of humor on the part of such sufferers would make the world a nicer place for everybody: themselves included!
Mind you, those of us who have so-called "sound bodies" (at least for the moment in these relatively short and unpredictable lives of ours) do -- I repeat: DO -- have a responsibility to deal with others sensitively according to their various physical and mental conditions and needs. That said, however, the obviously injured (or in some way "challenged") individual has a role to play, too, in creating or modifying the psychological atmosphere that surrounds them, and they (you'll forgive me, I know) should avoid the temptation to get on a moral high-horse by insisting upon some specific politically correct reception everywhere they go. After all, it is this high expectation itself that tends to poison the atmosphere around them from the get-go as folks of good will scramble, as it were, to do the right thing in their presence, (without appearing over-eager to do so, of course) lest they violate some taboo implicit in the latest hypercritical definition of "sensitivity" that has been stern-facedly foisted upon mainstream society by so-called advocates of the afflicted group in question.
Do you see where I'm coming from? (as the jet pilot said to the air traffic controller before making an emergency landing in the fog).
Thankfully, my leg got better within just a few days (it was a simple sprain, after all) -- but I somehow knew when entering that Krispy Kreme (with those devilish thoughts in my head about putting the able-bodied people around me "through their paces," so to speak, with respect to my dogmatic requirements for "sensitivity" on their part) -- I knew that even a long-term injury of this kind would not -- should not -- give me the right to hold my fellows to a standard that even I could not live up to as an "able-bodied" person. Indeed, I looked at it like this: It shouldn't (ultimately, at least) matter HOW they respond to me, provided that their actions show that they meant well.
As Theseus says in commendation of the largely talentless bumpkins who yet have a sincere desire to entertain him at the end of "A Midsummer Night's Dream":
Never anything can be amiss,
When simpleness and duty tender it
So, as I said above (seemingly ages ago now at the beginning of this no-doubt affecting harangue -- which, Frere Jacques, wake up, yes? The train is pulling into the station: the gare de lyon, I believe! Brother John! My Fair Lady? Get your luggage from the overhead bin and move to the back of the car, the both of you!)...
Injury and disability are not, in themselves, a laughing matter, BUT....
(but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but....)
it does no good to take them dead seriously, either.
In short, I'll thank everybody in this church (sound of body or not) to lighten up: Do your best: and judge people by their heartfelt intentions towards you, not by the trivial specifics of their outward adherence to our own exorbitant and self-referencing expectations. Because, hello, gang? Last time I checked, we were all human: Every mother's son of us -- and every father's daughter, into the bargain!
Amen.
Right. Again, thanks to Sister Harper for filling in last week. Don't forget: Disneyland pictures tonight after the covered dish dinner in the social hall.
And now, Ann, take us out of here with that crazy organ of yours -- on two:
1, 2, hit it!
Dramatic pipe organ postlude plays
c.2010 Brian Quass, Alexandria, VA USA