June 19, 2010

15 Minutes on Facebook

For brilliant people who use technology with relative ease, we have been sucked into a brain-wasting exercise called Facebook.

I admit that I am a member and the reason is that I am addicted to Scrabble and Facebook has a game that allows me to feed my addiction.

I am comfortable with both adding and removing 'friends' on this social networking site and don't feel particularly bad when I have to part ways with someone on the lunatic fringe.

Beth and I were talking about Facebook and she confessed she had opened a Facebook account last night. She concluded that bold statement by saying "It was the most horrible and worst 15 minutes of my life!"

She had opened, refused friends, and become frustrated and deleted her account --- all in the space of 15 minutes.

It isn't an exercise in ADD, I promise. And usually Beth isn't a hermit. She just wanted to 'friend' the zoo and the Botanical Gardens. But then reality set in...when you 'friend' people or entities on Facebook, you are no longer anonymous.

Beth said "I don't want friends! I have you!" in speaking to me about this. I'll try not to take this personally as I am relatively sure what she means. She means she doesn't want stupid lunatics (other than me) taking up her valuable and generally useful time. Sadly, she is stuck with me like toilet paper on the bottom of your shoe at a social function. So upset was she at this exercise in digital frustration, she didn't sleep.

I can truly understand.

I worry daily that people who I DON'T want to ever have any contact with again in this life or the next will find me and become the leeches they once were before I cut them off at the knees.

But inevitably, those are the very people who show up wanting to be my bestest buddy for the rest of my unnatural life.

I am thankful to reconnect with friends who are worth knowing and worth sharing time with over the miles. But the hazards of Facebook are worth noting. Did you know there is a group that advocates Facebook stalking???

I'm sure the spectre of revealing her life in oft shared detail prompted the deletion.

She confessed that she even signed up with a name she doesn't normally use (doesn't
everyone have an alias???) just so "no one would find her".

I said "Does this mean you DON'T want me to 'friend' you?

The laughter was unrestrained at this point.

We tend to think that social media is our friend. I am convinced, however, that Beth may be onto something here that the rest of us are missing. Too much detail will never be enough for people who are seeking to know the minute detail of our lives for the specific purpose of holding it against us in some future time.

Perhaps the remedy is at hand and we just don't realize it... Anti-social media just needs a kick start to make a go of it on the world-wide web.

Buttbook, anyone??

June 15, 2010

Inappropriate Laughter

On Facebook this morning, a friend had a random quote generated for today which said, "Did you ever noticed that things are so much funnier when you're not supposed to laugh and you know it's so wrong to!"

Smothering giggles behind hymnbooks seems to be a family tradition of sorts. Some of lifes funniest moments have happened for me in church pews all across America. There usually isn't a specific pinpoint moment I can blame for the hilarity, but sometimes the moment is completely well defined and I am not the only one who shares the sidesplitting, snicker smothering, choking hazard giggles behind the organ or piano.

I can recall numerous times where laughter replaced the sermon and where solemn occasions were rendered humerous with the snort of a suppressed snicker.

It isn't like it was meant to be inappropriate... it just happens.

Funerals, for whatever reason, seem to bring out the worst in me. Because I have been taught and believe so very strongly that this mortal life isn't all that there is, the sorrow of a loved one passing is often replaced with joy... or as we like to call it, a fit of the giggles.

My great-aunt Effie's funeral was such an event.

She was a simple country housewife from back in the day. Plain dresses and her hair done up in a bun, Aunt Effie was not a fashion plate because that would be against everything in her nature and character. A decent woman didn't draw attention to herself. It just wasn't done.

We went to Sylacauga for the funeral. She had been a simple and quiet woman whose life had been visited by more grief than anyone should have to endure. Though troubled with the ills of life, she was always genial and kind, even when others were not. I can see her in my mind’s eye standing on the porch of a small home wearing a faded print housedress and her hair pulled back into a severe bun. She was a gentle and kind woman who seemed out of place in a world that was increasingly forgetting manners for what feels good at the moment. An oasis of calm in a turbulent time, Aunt Effie was a paradox.


Because her daily attire seldom varied from the very simple clothing and worn shoes that she owned she was a reassuring constant in an era where conformity of any stripe was considered backward. Though she generally wore printed cotton housedresses, she had one solid colored dark navy dress that she would wear to church with a large brooch on the front that was about as old as she was.

The one moment of incongruity came at her funeral. Her passing, though somewhat of an anticipated occurrence due to her age, was a moment that revealed the level of preparedness we all come to when someone has died, whether suddenly or due to natural consequence as expected. In her case, whoever was asked to take care of selecting the clothing, or perhaps the undertaker himself, must not have known her very well, if at all. And when we went forward to pay our respects to her in the church service for her funeral, we discovered that we apparently didn’t know her either.

There, in the coffin was Aunt Effie. At least that is what the program said. But it was certainly not any Aunt Effie that we knew. Arrayed in a 2 piece, mod style, shocking purple pants suit and a white blouse bedecked with ruffles and frills, Aunt Effie lay like a model from a clothing catalogue showcasing garish clothing that during her lifetime she never would have been caught dead in. . . . until that day. Either someone bought it for her and she politely declined to wear it, or someone from the funeral home bought it. The effect was to continue beyond the clothing.

Her hair, which was normally in a tight bun and bobby pinned into place, had been teased up into a bouffant ‘do, and would have looked great on one of the Supremes. If the congregation at the church heard us all stifle our gasps, they were too polite to mention it. We simply couldn’t look at each other and keep it together with a straight face!

Although the aged and weathered little face in the coffin was familiar, nothing else about her was. Worse yet, we were expected to sing some of her favorite hymns with the choir. Have you ever tried to sing anything when you are desperately trying to keep from laughing out loud?

Understand that we were sad to see her go. But also understand that the image of this genteel soul dressed as if she was to be the next guest on the Ed Sullivan Show was more than we could keep under control. Momma hissed to us to ‘‘hush up!” and Daddy threw us his infamous evil eye. Their warnings slid off of us like bacon off of Teflon. It was just too dang funny!

For my part, I selected a point in the room that had a nice light fixture at which to stare. Kari became absorbed in the construction of the hymnal she was holding. We managed to hide our snickers behind the hymnbooks when the spasm of laughter threatened to spring forth. Evidently, we were better actresses than we knew with our fake sad faces. Afterwards, one of the ladies from her church told my parents that they could see how we had struggled to keep our emotions in check. She expressed her deep sympathy and hoped we would feel better. We had to duck out and flee to the station wagon at that point to maintain our composure.

It was just too bad that our composure didn’t last once we made it to the cars for the ride to the cemetery. We laughed, we cried, we hooted about that purple monstrosity that even Saint Peter would have been shocked to see. We just could imagine him asking her for positive I.D. and possible fingerprinting, saying “You can’t be Effie - she never dressed like that!” Although we had no proof since we couldn’t see her feet, Kari and I decided that Aunt Effie was most certainly wearing the flattering white, knee high go-go boots that would bring the ensemble all together. It was just more than we could stand.

By the time we reached the cemetery, we were compelled to stand at a distance to keep the funeral followers from hearing us snicker and snort. We didn’t mean to bring any disrespect to the solemn proceedings. Sadly, the image of the small woman who spent her days in the simplest, most modest clothing being sent to her eternal reward in a getup that would have looked more at place in a disco was just too much for our imaginations to let go by without taking it in and expanding the vision of just what Aunt Effie could do with that outfit.


Sometimes, laughter is medicine. Like a healing balm that helps us over the troubled times, we can laugh at our trials and make them a bit lighter.

Sometimes, laugher is just an explosion of sound to punctuate the emotional rollercoaster of hilarity that is lying just beneath the surface of calm.

Either way, laughter can be a balm in a world filled with restrictions and rules that are sometimes just too hard to take.

I think I may go out and buy myself a really garish purple pantsuit and wear it to church as if nothing is out of the ordinary.

If one person laughs, my job will be done.

June 13, 2010

The Loneliness of the Savior

While reading my lesson for church today, I was unsure which chapter we were on and sort of read some ahead or possibly behind the place where we might be today. I confess to sometimes being confused by the pocket calendar of lessons to be presented since it seems to be more of a suggestion than a reality.

As I was reading, there was a passage that talked about the process of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, not just that overly discussed segment in the Garden of Gethsemane and the segment of the agony of the cross, but specifically the part I have, up to this moment, apparently missed entirely.

The part where it says that God, the Father, withdrew from Jesus Christ so that he could fulfill the measure of the Atoning Sacrifice ALONE.

No help.

No support.

No comfort.

And no presence of His Father at all.

ALL ALONE.

In the deepest trial of His mortal life, the Savior of us all had to go through His trial at the very last ALL ALONE.

Why?

Tears began to flow down my face as I finally understood what I had missed all along.

Jesus Christ, who's atonement covers oh so much more than just sin, had to feel the absolute abandonment that we His Children feel when we are alone in our misery for whatever the cause.

And it was such a painful separation from the Father whom He talked with personally every single day. He begged for the cup to pass from Him, but ONLY if it was the will of the Father.

Even in His desperate and agonizing lonely separation from the strength of His Father and ours, He sought to be obedient no matter what.

It is more than I can fully comprehend...