A Time to Laugh
October 19, 2003
Dear Friends,
In Ecclesiastes 3:4, the writer tells us that there is “a time to laugh.” In keeping with this, we thought we would inaugurate an occasional TFTW with humorous true stories of events in the brotherhood. Please feel free to submit your own accounts to me at tucker_dmm@yahoo.com. If you mention someone other than yourself by name, please get their permission to do so. We want to laugh together and not at the expense of anyone.
My first story is a tale of the dangers of having someone else write your announcements. Bro. Jeff Witte was presiding at the evening program at the Ontario Christadelphian Bible Camp. For those of you have not been to “OCBC” as it is known, it is neither in Ontario nor a camp. It is on the slopes of the ski resort Jay Peak in Vermont where the “campers” reside in ski chalets. Anyway, the sister who wrote the recap of the day’s activities decided to use a less familiar word in place of the word “mountain.” She used the word “escarpment.” Bro. Jeff was not familiar with this word and instead of pronouncing it “escarpment”, he chose the unfortunate alternate pronunciation of “excrement.” As you can imagine, people could hardly contain themselves when Bro. Jeff read the evening announcements proclaiming such things as “The young people took a hike up the excrement today.”
Perhaps many of you can relate to the fact that some of your friends look up to you as a Bible scholar and seek your guidance when Scriptural questions arise. My mother-in-law, Betty Pinkston, had a close friend in south Louisiana who had a particularly vexing problem. She came to Betty and wanted to know what it was in the Bible that would prevent her mother taking the airplane into town for Christmas. This lady’s mother was convinced that the Bible said she could not come. Betty told her friend that she was sure that there was nothing in the Bible that would prevent her mother from coming. However, after thinking about it for a while, it dawned upon her what the offending verse was: “And pray ye that your flight be not in the winter.” (Mr 13:18 AV)
Many years ago, my brother-in-law, Allen Walker, made his first visit to any Christadelphian function at the Richmond Chapel’s fraternal gathering. As he wasn’t much of a churchgoer, he didn’t know quite what to expect although my sister, his girlfriend at the time, had prepared him a little. There were probably close to 250 people in attendance for that Saturday evening lecture. At the close of the lecture, the presider looked over at him and asked if “Al Walker would close with a prayer.” As I sat behind my future brother-in-law, I could see the total shock creep into his being. He turned toward me with a look of terror and a shrug as if to say to me “What do I go now?” I gave him the universal “shhh” sign of the index finger in front of the lips. What he did not realize was that a few rows behind him sat Bro. Al Walker from Canada who was taking his time getting started with the closing prayer. Allen later recalled that he only knew two prayers at the time — “God is great, God is good, now we thank him for our food” and “Now I lay me down to sleep…” He didn’t think either prayer was going to pass muster that evening. Despite that rocky beginning, Allen did come back to meeting the next morning.
The last story is a cautionary tale about the use of technology. Many years ago, an older brother was giving a Bible study using an overhead projector and the building’s white wall as a screen while visiting another ecclesia. He placed a map on the overhead and began to make his points while using a marker to draw the movements and locations he was addressing. After several minutes of this, a concerned member of the local ecclesia said in a loud voice, “Brother, why are you writing all over our wall?” The brother, while concentrating on making his point, had forgotten to write on his transparency and instead made these marks on the ecclesial hall’s wall. The local brethren thought this was so humorous, they left the marks undisturbed for years.
Have a great week!
