This past Christmas one of our church staff members gave me a clever desk calendar with a tear-off page for every day of the year. (OK--full disclosure, Saturday and Sunday are combined into one page. Somehow calendars, even those designed with clergy in mind, seem to forget that for some of us Saturday and/or Sunday is a workday!)
At any rate, this one does not feature Far Side cartoons or pictures of National Parks or recipes. Rather, it has church signs. You know, those signs out in front of church buildings that feature worship times, and sermon titles, and sometimes pithy sayings. Some of them are extremely clever. Things like, "God might call you, but probably not on your cell phone. Turn it off during church." Or, "Tweet others as you want to be tweeted."
In the last couple of weeks, though, there were two that I thought were extremely pertinent in this time of pandemic. For those who think you shouldn't need to wear a mask in church because God will protect you from the virus, there was this gem: "Trust in God, but lock your car." And for those who are feeling the strains of physical distancing, there was this sweet thought: "If your arms can't reach someone, hug them with your prayers."
This pandemic is hard on everyone--for a wide array of reasons. And the church is not exempt (despite Florida's governor's exemption of house of worship from regulations governing the maximum number of persons gathering on one place at a time.) But humor--and a bit of homegrown wisdom--can help. We must listen to what science has to tell us, but that doesn't mean we can't have a chuckle or two as well!
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