More Odd Things

I took communion for the first time this week. The church in America could learn a thing or two about the Lord’s supper from these guys. They use the equivalent to graham crackers and orange kool-aid. I felt like I wanted to keep going back through the line. It was like kindergarten snack time. I was reverent and somber until I put those things in my mouth, then I started feeling a like I was living on some more thrilling fringe of Christianity. It was just a big surprise I guess compared to choking down that dull cracker (which I do adore and always look forward to, but only because it represents the body and blood of Christ). Much more exciting taste to it than at home. I'm not sure if communion should be so thrilling. :)

My house is not far from market. It is always a bustling place. So if I am home from work, I hear somewhat annoying music blaring from the speakers there for most of the day. And then once in a while Dolly Parton comes on. Where in the world did she come from? It’s always the same song. I can’t hear the words well enough to know which one, but I know for sure it is her. Always amuses me.

Something else amusing was my patient today. I was kind of excited about getting to treat a nun. You know, it’s something about that thing on her head. That is what sets her apart. There are many of us who follow God with all of our lives (though certainly ours are different), but the rest of us don’t get to wear that. Anyhow, while treating her I was having a good rolling laugh inside. I had to give her birth control pills – not for the purpose of birth control, but for other gynecologic problems. I told her while chuckling, “You are going to have some explaining to do to the sisters at the convent as to why you are on these”. 

And the last thing I've found funny - circumcision. Three mornings a week I see them abducting the boy babies out of their mothers arms and lining them up on a stretcher. Their mothers wrap them like it is deep winter in the frigid north all the time, so they look like fat little rolled baby tortillas. They are all lined up right alongside one another. Most are crying - I would be too, had I the same parts and destined for the same purpose. They seem to know that they are in danger. I heard the nurse today gently say to one, "Stop crying baby". I told her, "You'd cry too if someone did to you what you are doing to him!" And then they were off, rolling down the hall to surgery clinic.