For Christians to have a positive influence on this world, we need a sense of humor. We
have to be able to laugh at whatever seems most frustrating. Which is usually ourselves.
It's a skill that develops with maturity.
One of my unfondest memories is junior high gym class. The gym suits we wore matched
the color gym socks get when they've been left in the locker all year and the original
sweat has mildewed into a new strain of penicillin.
The suits were designed by somebody's grandmother who wanted to do everything possible
to discourage boy-girl relations, the idea being to make the girls' budding shapes appear
flat and the boys' legs look like toothpicks protruding from Mr. Potato Heads.
What I also wish I could forget is the Virginia Reel. I couldn't imagine anyone ever
chosing to spend time doing it. The girls, standing on one side of the Reel, stared at the
row of boys' dirty sneakers, afraid to look a boy in the face, lest they should find him
grinning because he was imagining what was hidden in the girls' gym suits.
The dance would begin with its bowing and curtsying and doe-see-doeing. The worst part
was having to actually touch a boy -- holding his hands as we sashayed between
the rows of smirking classmates. I never got to sashay with the boys I liked, but always
the ones whose gym suits smelled like dead whales -- the boys who picked their noses
waiting their turn to sashay, the boys who glued milk cartons to the undersides of lunch
tables with mashed potatoes and carried some of the evidence on their knuckles.
The Virginia Reel left an indelible impression on my idea of fun.
And yet, years later, I deliberately choose to attend a night of square dancing that
includes, of course, the Virginia Reel. This time I sashay with my husband, who has
repented of gluing milk cartons to tables. When he picks something, it's usually romantic
restaurants. But he's no better at square dancing than those gym potatoes of yore, and
neither am I.
Why do we torture our bodies so?
Actually, all went well until we stood up to dance. We should have realized our mistake
when our square turned out to be an isosceles triangle. We should have noticed the warning
of impending disaster when we straightened into a square, turned to bow to our partner and
found ourselves facing someone else's group. And we should have all gone out to the movies
when two of the men ended up promenading with each other.
The caller thought we'd invented a new step when we fell on the floor laughing and
rolled our doe-see-does.
This was much more fun than the dances we did correctly in gym class. What made the
difference?
First of all, the friends I grouped up with were the type who are willing to dance like
hippos in a ballet. By the time we achieved a few grey hairs, we had all learned how to
laugh at ourselves.
If only we could take the same jovial spirit to our places of employment, to our homes
and to our ministries of improving the morality of our society, the world might begin to
see Christians as a people to take seriously.
Also, it helps to not have to wear those ugly gym suits.
