Really Mature People, A Very Hot Place & Absurdity

There is quite possibly a Very Hot Place waiting for me because of

• watching a car weaving
• all over the freeway
• in front of me this morning
• that had
• ‘Just Married’
• written in white shoe polish
• along the back window in
• giant, squiggly letters and
• one lone tin can
• smacking around on the ground behind it

and thinking, 

• wouldn’t it be great if
• those two love birds have been
• drunk on their newlywed asses since
• their wedding three weeks ago and
• are now
• driving all over Missouri wondering

Where the hell is that great gulf coast beach our travel agent told us about when we booked our honeymoon?

I am glad to report, however, there is not a Very Hot Place waiting for me due to my shennanigans Sunday evening when we went up the road to Ben’s dad’s house for a family birthday party.

One of our 80 pound dogs was in attendance

(against all advice other than my own because, essentially, I had not sought the advice of anyone other than myself)

and was having a great time because she loves little kids and there are all kinds of little kids in our extended family and suddenly,

one of our 4 year old cousins was screaming her head off and running at top speed across the giant field beside Ben’s dad’s house and our dog was following her in a state of utter glee because running screaming kids look like lots of fun to her except

she didn’t know as we did that our 4 year old cousin was running and screaming due to having nearly crapped her little pants out of sheer fear of our 80 pound dog.

And the faster our little cousin ran and the louder she screamed the more our dog thought she was playing some kind of fun game and I started laughing because there seemed to be no harm in our dog helping some little kid get a little bit of good ol’ rural exercise by running as fast as she could across a giant field.

And our little cousin’s mother looked at me and said,

There is a Very Hot Place waiting for you.

Then there was the difficulty of the fact that Ben’s dad’s neighbor had decided to put on a tube top that could, due to her sheer size, also be used as a child’s sleeping bag.  And she flounced and bounced her way across the big field on her riding lawn mower and then was done and went into her garage and

proceeded to make some kind of strange and high pitched screaming noise.

And our running and screaming cousin’s mother said,

I wonder what that’s about?

And I said,

She probably looked down and realized she was wearing that tube top.

Our cousin’s mother turned to me and kind of leaned forward with her face scrunched into an odd shape and said,

Noooooooooooooooooooooo…

And then waggled her head around as if a gnat had flown into her ear and I looked around to see what was going on and realized the child of the tube top neighbor had wandered onto the porch and was eating birthday cake and

the moment I realized she hadn’t heard what I said I regained focus our cousin’s mother who was still waggling her head around but had also started laughing and was hunched over the birthday cake she was trying to cut from doing so and then we became so hysterical with laughter that we had to use some of the little birthday napkins to wipe our eyes of their tears.

And, when she got herself together she again said,

There is a Very Hot Place waiting for you.

And now I’m sitting here thinking about an early church ‘father’ by the name of Tertullian and theories about his discussion of faith during which he supposedly said something along the lines of,

Certum est quia impossibile est.

or

This is therefore credible, just because it is absurd.

Sometimes I think about that little line when I’m laughing so hard over something that all of my insides begin feeling absurd and I end up having to use little birthday party napkins to dry my eyes.

Sometimes I also think about that little line when I’m told

There is a Very Hot Place waiting for you.

because I’ve let absurdity come tumbling out of me right in front of anyone.

I’m thinking it may just be part of that thing that happens when the absurdity is really on a roll and someone says,

You’re not right,

and I say,

Oh honey, I’m not wrong either.

It’s also a great to think about when things in life are so much

• better
• more amazing
• bigger
• expanded and
• beautiful

that it seems absurd and I just have to get on board with the fact that something is going on that I don’t understand and could never have expected but is so good that I just have to believe it is intended to be so.

And I’m also sitting here being very glad our little cousin’s mother made that ‘gnat-in-ear’ face and had to hunch over the cake as she was cutting it to maintain some small vestige of normalcy because I used to worry that she was one of those

Really Mature People

who didn’t have much room for a bunch of absurdity of the type that happens to come wandering out of me on a regular basis.

But now I know I’m going to send her a copy of this blog entry because it will make her laugh like there is no tomorrow and she’s been telling me

I love you as big as the sky,

and things like that are right up that alley of so good that it is absurd.