One of my favorite sayings used to be "If there is a God . . .".
I was raised in a religion/religious denomination/whatever where rules trumped all. You would never place anything on top of your Bible. You would never dream of writing Bible or God or Holy Spirit and not capitalizing those words. You would never pick up a newspaper or secular journal on Sabbath. You wouldn't go out to eat at a restaurant on Sabbath. You would never drink coffee or alcohol. You wouldn't play cards or go to a movie or * or * or ad infinitum. Take the Lord's name in vain? God forbid!
I got so sick of all the "thou shalt nots" that it now pleases me no end to be the slightest little bit tongue-in-cheek sacrilegious. So any little thing that I'd wish for, I'd say to Tyler, "If there is a God, . . ." until one day he said to me, "By the way, Mom, there isn't."
His statement stopped me dead in my tracks and started a million interesting conversations between us. I've told him many times since that I may not agree with him but I love how his mind works.
Then last week I got a great fortune in my fortune cookie and thus started "from your mouth to General Tso's ear." Then tonight I Googled "General Tso."
General Tso is my new hero. He failed his official court exams (could that be like the bar exam?) seven—count 'em, seven—times. And then he "resigned himself to a quiet life growing silkworms, farming and drinking tea."
I want his life! And just think, but for one fortune cookie, I never would have hungered for that knowledge. And but for the Internet, I never would have found it!
No comments:
Post a Comment