Of all the times to giggle...

Why is it that at the worst possible moments (sitting on a jury, hearing a brilliant concert, and, most of all, in church, especially at the most solemn liturgies) one will have an unexpected thought or memory that causes a fit of giggling? I well remember, for example, when I once was attending a Good Friday service (sitting towards the front, that I may see and hear). A young woman was sitting in front of me, with a beautiful infant girl, perhaps two years of age. The baby was very striking looking, but didn't have a childish expression - she had a very wise, mature, dignified manner, and resembled an infant one might see in the arms of a Byzantine Madonna. Of course, no one else would have realised what sent me into the laughing fit (least of all the Italian priest who called out to me, from the altar, "Isabella, shut up!", in broad dialect.) But the little figure in front of me had just informed her mother, with the collected dignity befitting a queen, "I pissed."

Last week, I attended a marvellous choral liturgy for Ash Wednesday. As the imposition of ashes began, I was nearly swept away by the beautiful sounds of the Miserere, and the readings and prayers already had me nearly ready to levitate, so I started up the aisle with suitable recollection... disturbed by an intensely silly memory from back when I was in my 20s.

I cannot recall, now, how I met her or why I was there (I must have been assisting her in some way), but I stayed a few days with an elderly nun once. She was on exclaustration because she'd tried to split her community when they got too secular, but had the Blessed Sacrament reserved in a makeshift chapel. (Denise had long worked in a slum neighbourhood, and her flat was on the top floor.) It was a blood hot August afternoon, the sort of heat that somehow is worst in slums, and we were so overheated that I was wearing a nightdress (and nothing else), Denise just her Josephite petticoat. Suddenly, the auxiliary bishop unexpectedly stopped by - he'd got word of her having the Sacrament, and came to take it away. Needless to say, the last thing I was expecting to do in my nightgown was meet a bishop, but Denise was unperturbed, and I was all the more embarrassed because she asked him to bless us and rose then got to her knees. (I am rather well-endowed, yet much too polite not to rise when a clergyman enters the room - and if doing so caused undue flopping on the way up, when Denise set the precedent to kneel for the blessing, I dare-say the flop-flop effect was worse by far on the way down.)

Afterwards, I told her I'd been very ill at ease. (Today I probably would have laughed - but, modest though I indeed still am, I was far more so when I was still at the age to be in permanent heat.) Denise conceded that, at her age (80 or so), it really didn't matter much whether one was modest or not, but then said to me, "Oh, we're all dust, honey!"

Of all the memories to have during the imposition of ashes... :-)

Nothing profound today, my friends - but I did think I'd share a book I am re-reading for Lent (I get more out of it each time.) Check out some of Tom Wright's best writing for the season.

Jesus and the Victory of God, Vol. 2 [JESUS & THE VICTORY OF GOD VOL]