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Monty Python
There is an important right of passage happening at our house tonight. My middle daughter is going to watch "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" for the first time. There's some edgy stuff in this movie, but she'll be okay.
We'll both be a little uncomfortable when Sir Galahad encounters the beautiful women in the castle Anthrax, but we'll look at each other, roll our eyes, and be fine. My oldest daughter is beside herself with glee, remembering the night I first watched it with her.
I go way back with Monty Python.
In 1974 I was a rather lonely 7th grade boy who was trying hard to survive junior high in a new city. My parents had left the border town of El Paso and moved to Houston the year before.
My family was a loving one, but a little more serious than most. Religious families can be like that. A great temptation for religious people is to make life too serious. The stakes are high in everything you do. You must live a good Christian life to be a faithful witness for Christ. You must tell others about Jesus. You must read the bible and pray. You must always go to church.
Saturday nights we were sent to bed early so we would be rested for worship in the morning. Lights out at ten o'clock. One night I awoke at midnight and went for a drink of water. On the way back to bed I stopped and turned on the TV, which happened to be set for channel 2, NBC in Houston.
Monty Python's Flying Circus.
I sat with my face inches from the screen with the volume turned way down. I was stunned, enchanted, captivated, thrilled. I watched with one palm on the glass.
I didn't know this sort of thing existed in the world. I didn't know that grownups were allowed to be this silly, and these men were very silly indeed.
And of course, there were the naked women cutout animations, which were quite sexy for me at the time.
From then on, I slipped out of bed every Saturday night to watch the Flying Circus. My parents never found out. It was the love of my life at a time when I needed a little silliness and something to call my own.
The Python gang taught me to find beauty in language and joy in a well-turned phrase. They gave me my sense of humor. I still have a slight British cadence to my speech, roughly packaged in a Texas accent.
"It's not particularly bothersome, really."
I like to drop very subtle Python references into my sermons on occasion. There are several kindred spirits in the congregation who listen for these. Before I retire I'm hoping to find a way to say, "Eric the fish" in a sermon. That one's going to be a challenge.
Tonight my sweetheart will be initiated into our little club. We'll let her in on all the secret jokes and the famous lines. She'll understand why I laugh when her sister shouts "Ni!" She'll snicker behind her hand when I sneak up on her and say, "HUGE tracts of land."
And she will begin to understand a deep spiritual truth. Life should be taken seriously, along with our calling from God to be people of justice and mercy. At the same time, Life should not be taken too seriously. A lack of laughter is death to the soul and turns robust spirituality into dry doctrine.
Living creatively with that tension is an art. Nested gently between serious and silly you will find tender goodness, like a little bird. Hold this bird alive in your hands all the days of your life. Do not squeeze her too tightly or let her fly away.
Tonight my daughter begins the cultivation of that art.
Thank you Michael, Terry, Terry, Eric, John, and Graham, God rest your soul.
Parrots make lovely goldfish!
The Preacher
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© Copyright 2005 Preacher.
Last update: 7/17/2005; 8:21:23 PM. Links
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