The Common Good
March-April 1997

Faith, Politics & Bathroom Reading

by Don Harting | March-April 1997

MY WIFE THINKS I’m weird. She tells my friend I
can’t talk because I’m busy.

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MY WIFE THINKS I’m weird. She tells my friend I can’t talk because I’m busy. She’s heard my voice from the next room and assumes I’m talking to someone on the other line. Actually I’m re-reading Ed Spivey Jr.’s "H’rumphs" in the 25th anniversary issue of Sojourners (November-December 1996), unable to control my desire to laugh as I say the words aloud.

A few minutes later I’m in the bathroom, giggling uncontrollably something about "Yaaaah Waaay" as I go about my business. My bewildered son in the adjoining bathroom asks me through the wall, "Dad, what’s so funny?" Hard to explain to an 8-year-old who doesn’t read Dave Barry and Christian magazines.

On the way back down to the basement office, my wife, carrying a load of laundry, tells me again I’m weird.

The women at the Spiritual Renewal Center in Syracuse didn’t know what to think either. Seems they don’t often have grown men cracking up while reading magazines from the coffee table in their sedate reading room. My compliments. Well done. Are all your articles that funny?

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