65. Spiritually Non-productive Chatter

The three of us get together most Wednesdays. Okay, often on Wednesdays. There have been way too many times that responsibilities have dragged me away as of late.  We talk about our lives, our struggles, tell off colour and bad jokes to each other, laugh, share memories of weird and stupid stuff we have done.  There is really nothing off limits, and I mean very little is not considered in our conversations.

Our theology can be obscure, and strange and even weird.

         

At the end of our time we ask how we can support each other in prayer.  It is my small group.  We have had people come and join us, only to move on to other endeavours.

It reminds me of an earlier time.

Since I got my first year clean, I have always been an old timer in the twelve step fellowship that saved me.  With being an old timer comes some respect, maybe even reverence.  Old timers are seen somewhat like the holders of the “knowledge.”  It always kinda of grated on me.

One day some of us “Old Timers” were getting together for breakfast.  The four of us would often get together down at Hamburger Mary’s on a Saturday morning. I invited a friend of mine along.  After breakfast he explained to me that he had been thrilled to get such an invite, it was almost like being asked into the inner sanctum.  He expected deep spiritual insights to be offered by the four of us who were the “Old Timers.”

Instead, of deep wisdom he got profound foolishness.  One of us did the old man walk pulling his pants up to his nipples and doing the Tim Conway shuffle on the sidewalk.  We told off colour jokes, teased each other, and generally acted like fools.  It is the kind of exuberance one experiences in the moment, the moment of gratitude that one is still alive and able to be ridiculous.

There was no profound sharing of our personal tragedies, or insights of recovery, or wisdom from having worked the steps.  What he saw, he explained, was these four old timers being silly.  Therein he saw the wisdom, the profound insight.  That we have taken what had been so freely given, and were using it to the fullest.

These three other men, the four of us, had at other times shared some of the most profound moments of our lives with each other.  Moments of intense shame, moments of anger, moments of grief and sadness – moments when we realized there were events and times that we could never take back no matter much we wanted to.  We also shared intense joy and happiness.

In the twelve steps I am taught that the more I can get out of my way, the more God can come in.  But it is not a solitary experience, it is always, always, with someone else.  So in our humour there was light found in the darkest corners of our lives.  And with humour came healing.

What seemed like spiritually non-productive chatter, was intensely healing. 

My small group on Wednesdays carries less intensity.  I have yet to see someone get up and move to another table because of us.  There is not the same sense of urgency in our lives.  None of us need to strip away the veneer and show the ugliness and confusion that lay underneath.  But, from the outside it may look like the same spiritually non-productive chatter.

For me, it is like coming home.  I think of Jesus as God, for he is, but I also think of him as human.  So I get to talk about whether Jesus told fart jokes.  Did he ever walk up to Peter and say, “Hey, Pete pull my finger!”

It has been the place where I have eeked out a place for me in the church.  It is where I asked Pastor Dan if he could explain Penal Substitution and not sound like he was doing a Monty Python skit.  It is where I have been able to express doubts about my faith, and the church, and bible, and God.  It has been the place where I have laughed.

There is the same sense of humour, maybe a little more tempered, and Pastor Dan has yet to pull his pants up to his nipples and wander around the coffee shop.  But it is there, and the healing and lightness that it brings, at least to my soul, has been healing. 

It also brings to mind, those earlier more insanely intense days. 

It think we get caught up in being productive.  But my God, or at least as I understand him, still travels in humour and laughter carries his light.