This morning’s Serenity involves My Big Fat Greek Wedding, my childhood self, the children of Israel, and Life As We Know It. You might need coffee.
Part 1: “Woe to me!”
Dave and I have loved and watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding for so long that we own it on video. That’s right—video. As in we still have a VCR. I had to prepare a young colleague at work for it when she kindly cat-sat Cheeto for the first time. But back to the movie. One of our favorite scenes involves Toula’s mom and aunt plotting to convince her stubborn dad to let her leave the family restaurant and work in the aunt’s travel agency. And as Aunt Voula is dramatically feigning despair, she cries, “Woe to me!”
The Luesses have adopted that cry whenever we catch ourselves complaining about something. One of us will interrupt the whining with “Woe to me!” (Our other favorite Voula quote is, “Tell me what to say—but DON’T tell me what to say,” which we sometimes vary: “Tell me what to do—but DON’T tell me what to do.” That one comes up a lot when I’m driving and he’s navigating. Or when one of us is helping the other make a decision about something.)
Parts 2 & 3: My Childhood Self & The Children of Israel
Did you ever have sort of an out-of-body experience with your childhood self—a time when you weren’t so much remembering something from back then as watching Little You experience it? I see myself in Sunday School when I was about 8 or 9 years old, with Bernice Kidd, Gracie Sewell, and my Aunt Zudora taking us kids on that long journey to Canaan with the children of Israel. And I can hover above that Sunday School room and watch Little Me shaking her head at those doubting wanderers. “God parted that sea and sent them manna from heaven and STILL they don’t trust him? Sheesh! What’s up with these people?!”
Part 4: Life As We Know It
Over the years, I’ve wandered in my own wilderness from time to time, with many a “Woe to me!” as I couldn’t understand why “this” (whatever it was at the time) had to happen. Dave and I have had a lot of “this” over the past year or so, along with some amazingly wonderful blessings. And I can be really quick with the “Woe to me!” even as I’m blindly stepping over manna from heaven.
We’re human. And we’re going to have moments of “Woe to me!” But some of our worst moments are guideposts to the best. I just have to remind myself to look for that manna.
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