Monday Morning Humor

A bit of Monday morning humor...


In Sunday School yesterday, our teacher played a video by Andy Stanley, son of legendary Pastor Dr. Charles Stanley in Atlanta, Georgia. I have, of course, heard Dr. Stanley preach before, but I am not a regular viewer. Many in my family have expressed a particular connection to his teaching. My late parents, my sister-cousin, my daughter-in-law, and my Aunt Zella all were greatly blessed at one time or another by Dr. Stanley.

My Aunt Zella would talk about flying down to Atlanta to talk things over with him; he would meet her at the airport. She would rave about how much better she felt about whatever it was that was bothering her.

She never exactly explained whether he led her to the Lord or not. She was a very successful business owner and well-known philanthropist who gave a lot of support to Methodist causes, among other causes, such as Boys Club. But, after these encounters with Dr. Stanley, something sure changed about her, and there was a spark there that had been missing before.

Anyway, back to the story, which I had started a few weeks ago, but forgot about until yesterday.

We went with our pastor and some church friends to the nursing home on the first Sunday of the month, as usual, in May.  Our transplanted Texas friends, Pat and Carol, led us in a few songs accompanied by Pat on his guitar.  Our Pastor did a short rendition of the morning sermon, and people were very attentive and interested. 

After the sermon, Pat and Carol led us in a few more songs, and then another church friend, Miss Norma, asked Ken and I to sing a duet. ( I always carry some music to these things in case I am asked to play because I have no innate talent to play without music.)  So we went up to the piano to sing, "While the Ages Roll."

This beautiful grand piano was a player piano, quite new, but difficult to play due to the inner workings that make it a player piano.  (Plays by itself, if desired) There was no piano lamp, either.  I could not see the notes and neither of us could see the words. It was an absolutely horrendous performance! If you sing, you know when you have truly laid an egg....

So, I whispered to Ken that we HAD  to do another song to redeem ourselves.  I chose one we have done for 38 years, "Sweet Beulah Land," with the thought that we knew it by heart and could do it with minimal light.  If we couldn't at least do a passable job on this song, we should head to the house! The administrator opened the blind to help a bit, too.

Well, we did about as poorly on this one, too!  It was probably the worst we have ever done on a song in 40 years. We were very tired and rushed that weekend, but, for whatever reason, it was especially terrible. (I would say the worst ever, but there was that one funeral we did at a funeral home that was not set up to accommodate a keyboard. Their sound system, or lack thereof, was set up for karaoke style singing, and the whole thing was just a disaster.)

 So, anyway, we sang and played awful! We left the nursing home quite embarrassed, but hoping we had at least blessed a few of the hearing impaired residents.

We rushed home and managed to make it back to church in about an hour or so.  Norma came over to speak to us prior to the service.  "Did you know who was there today for our Nursing Home Service," she asked?  Well, lots of older folks.?....  "Dr. Charles Stanley's sister was there visiting a friend!"

The first words out of my husband's mouth were:

"Oh, great. Now we have to go to Atlanta to redeem ourselves!"