Church Brings out the Worst in Me!

Everytime we go to Mass, I try really hard to pray and be holy. But it doesn't last long. My mind starts to wander. I invent stories about the people around me. There was a guy in the pew in front of us that had a huge dent in his head that was totally black in the center--about the size of a quarter. I couldn't imagine what could have fallen on his head to cause this. I finally settled on a story that he was bitten by a brown recluse after putting on his dusty, moldy old garden hat to prevent his bald pate from getting sunburned while he set up Japanese Beetle traps to save his heirloon roses. Seemed like a nicer thing to think about in church rather than he was hit by the ceiling fan during a romp in the hay. Besides that, he was a bit too old to be romping---if ya' know what I mean!

On to the next person---a young man in church alone with a baby. I admired the brave guy and imagined his story: his wife is off fighting in Iraq and he's keeping the home fires burning. Shaking off that idea, it seemed more likely that he was divorced and it was his weekend for visitation. Still, gotta' love a guy who takes a baby to church. Doesn't really fit the divorce scenario. I gave him the father of the year award. The only plausible answer was that he took the baby to church so his sleep deprived wife could sleep in.

All this in the first five minutes. Mass was going to be long today!

Next, a guy sat in the pew in front of us wearing nearly the exact same shirt as Butch. I nudged Butch and he growled---"I know"! If it wouldn't have caused a scene, I'm sure we would have moved. I was reminded of the time that we got to church in my car and it was pouring down rain. I had two umbrellas, so I gave him one. Unfortunately for him, they were matching Brighton umbrellas with red and pink hearts all over. He said, "oh, great"! But what choice did he have. On the way in, two separate people said "nice umbrellas". They are nice. He wasn't.

Okay, so that was 5 more minutes---it was going to be a long mass. I think I dozed off some. They played a song I liked, so I got the songbook and sang---pretty loud---I do that when I know the song.

Then it was time for Communion. Afterwards, when you are kneeling and supposed to be praying for a long time (I can only pray for a short time), I'm watching the shoes go by. I do that in airports too. "love 'em, hate 'em, hate 'em, like 'em"---the "hate 'em"'s usually win. There are some ugly shoes out there.

Priest sits, we all get to sit. Ahhh, now we're into the home stretch. I can just about smell breakfast.

Don't get me wrong, I do pray. It's just that you can only say so many Hail Mary's and Our Father's. I think it's okay---God gave me this short attention span---at least I'm there part of the time. That should count for something.