DOES GOD HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR?

I sure hope he does. Or I am likely to be stuck by lightning as I walk home today. It is raining here by the way. So the stage is set.

I was stuck with religious fervor on Christmas Eve which resulted in my agreeing to go to two different services on Sunday. One of them at C and D’s church and the other, an evening candlelight service at C’s parent’s church. Maybe I was making up for all those times when a 6 o’clock curfew and later the lure of a nice, warm bed prevented me from ever going to a Christmas Eve mass.

The morning one was comparatively incident free if you don’t count the one tiny incident where I almost caused a sweet old woman to go into seizures. I tripped over a wire that someone had left on the church floor, for the express purpose of tripping people up I believe, and almost landed in the poor lady’s lap.

This was a high-tech service, with an overhead projector, where the lyrics of the carols were displayed so everyone could sing along. I decided to add my voice too; only, I had no clue as to the tunes. I did catch C giving me strange looks during the carol singing, but then it’s the spirit that counts right?

The sermon was far from boring too. It was delivered by a long-haired, good looking pastor wearing a colorful striped shirt and tan slacks. He added spice to the proceedings with frequent references to Tom Cruise and his ilk.

The evening service was more moving. The cathedral was a stately one, and decorated with all the trimmings of the season. The pastor, or should I say lady pastor, was an ex-newscaster with the local San Diego news station, before she decided to serve God instead of a media mogul. She definitely had the gift of the gab.

This service was advertised as a “candlelight” service. Of course, like all the things here, it was not quite as it seemed. There were fire regulations in effect, so of course, there were no real candles. We had battery-operated ones and these could be turned on by twisting the top half of the “candle”. We all stood in a circle around the pews and each person turned on the light when their turn came. It was soon my turn, and as usual, I could not turn on the candle. The top half was screwed on really tight. I soon had people on either side of me trying to help me with it and all their efforts were in vain. My candle refused to light up. I looked up to see half of C’s large family at the opposite end of the church grinning from ear to ear and trying hard not to guffaw. C’s father finally solved the problem by handing me his candle. Like I said, I sure hope God has a sense of humor.