One of the best things we can do to help maintain our humility (and humanity) is to laugh at ourselves from time to time. In my ministry and in my family I am probably best known for my satirical way of looking at myself and those around me. The following is an excerpt from one of my many writings. Hopefully, it will make you chuckle:
From the annals of Grumpy Grandpa:
There are several philosophies (rules) that hold true and formulate the way your Grandfather thinks… Although these rules are broken from time to time with varying degrees of seriousness and consequence, it is my obligation as the head of the family to pass them on… To at least ensure their understanding in how they relate to all our lives.
Philosophical Rule #1:
Parents die before their children…
This is very straight forward and should not require a great amount of explanation… Make no mistake; your grandparents are to die before your parents (their children), your parents are to die before you and you before your children… This is an agreement reached with God long before the dawn of man… READ and HEED this rule!!! Children SHOULD NOT DIE while their parents are alive… This rule is frequently broken; so apparently the message is not getting across to each generation thoroughly enough… Maybe this writing will help to ensure YOUR generation understands…
Philosophical Rule #2:
You learn everything you need to survive sufficiently in life by the age of six…
Some of these primary survival skills include; don’t run while carrying knives or scissors.... Don’t cut your siblings hair (or your own)… Say “Please and Thank You” as well as “Yes Sir, Yes Mam or No Sir, No Mam”. And the word “NO” has the same meaning in public that it does at home… This rule also includes the old adage “think before you speak”. .. To be lacking in these basic skills will draw not only public criticism of your parents but a shorter life span for them AND possibly you as well… It is my contention that public humiliation due to a child’s behavior has been the cause of many early parental deaths… Thus, it is imperative to MY generation’s longevity that YOUR generation behave respectfully and appropriately… (Remember Philosophical Rule #1)
Philosophical Rule #3:
Everything in moderation…
Stop and think about this… Without water; we die… With too much water; we die… Without medicine; we have disease and die… Too much medicine; we die… This rule was taught to you as part of your training under Rule #2… You were given a vitamin each day, but not allowed to eat them like candy... It would be your grandfather’s contention that the world would be much better if everyone partook in MODERATION… Too much religion and one becomes a zealot killing in the name of God almighty… Too little religion and you lack even social morals…
Philosophical Rule #4:
Prejudices…
When I was a child growing up in a very small town, there were few racial prejudices around me… I grew up thinking that people differed not by the color of their skin but by whether they lived in town or on a farm… The kids in town had cars and did all the cool stuff… While those of us that lived on farms had to get home right after school to do chores… This also meant changing clothes at least twice a day… One set for school and the other set for doing chores… The same changing of clothes routine was followed on Sunday… One set for church and the other for around the farm (chores such as feeding animals didn’t take Sundays off)… Saturday was about the only day you could wear a single set of clothes all day, unless it was the day you cleaned the barn stalls…
Don’t get me wrong… As a child, we had fun… It just involved varying how we did most routine things… There were always horses on our farm and we managed to entertain ourselves with games like jousting… Each fall my siblings and I would ride along the edge of the corn fields with their seven foot tall stalks ready for harvesting… We’d each pull a good heavy stalk from the ground and “charge” at one another as fast as we could… Frequently, this resulted in a fall from our speeding steed and another change of clothes…