| Spiritual Humour |
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| Signs of the Times |
| Down here in Cornwall, I�ve recently noticed a large increase in the amount of �New-Age� car stickers: 'POWERED BY MAGIC', 'NEVER DRIVE FASTER THAN YOUR ANGELS CAN FLY', and one of my personal favourites: 'WITCHES PARKING ONLY� ALL OTHERS WILL BE TOAD'. Of the non New-Age signs, I particularly like: 'KEEP CORNWALL TIDY� THROW YOUR LITTER IN DEVON'. There is one however, that I�ve never understood, 'CAUTION, SHOW DOGS IN TRANSIT'. What does that mean? Why be cautious? Are the dogs driving? And why Show dogs? Do they do conjuring tricks whilst riding a unicycle? Or perform on stage singing hits from the West-End? 'Cats', perhaps? Last week, I went shopping and parked in a multi-storey. While walking to the ticket-machine I noticed a battered lime-green Volkswagen campervan painted all-over with orange flowers. In the back window was a car sticker which read: 'PRACTICE RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS'; classier than an image of a Rottweiler saying: 'Make my Day', I thought. Parking isn�t cheap in my home-town of Truro, in fact, it�s sometimes necessary to sell your car in order to raise the revenue to park it, so imagine my happiness when I checked the coin-return-tray in the ticket-machine and found it full of cash. I took out coin after coin. What luck! My mind started to race over how I might spend this unexpected jackpot. A lottery ticket perhaps? A six pack of beer? A cuddly toy or a fondue set? Glancing over my shoulder I noticed three ladies waiting to purchase their tickets. The car sticker came to mind: 'Practice Random Acts of Kindness' � was this a sign? Were �those upstairs� testing my integrity? Should I keep or share my good fortune? In my minds eye I could see a cartoon Devil hovering over my left shoulder, |
| Never look a gift horse in the mouth � It just might spit in your eye!
So says Spiritual writer Nick Richardson |
| �Keep the money, go and buy yourself a pint.� It said with impish glee.
An Angel materialised on my right, �Nicky, be a gentleman and give some to the nice ladies behind you.� It said in silky tones. �No, no, no�finders� keepers.� came the rebellious reply. My head was spinning, what should I do? Guilt, dear reader, got the better of me and I decided to dish-out my windfall. I turned to the three ladies, �Look at that,� I said opening my hand to show my winnings, �somebody�s looking after us today.� I took some of the coins and dropped them into the hand of lady number one. She glanced down at the money and then up at me. By her snooty expression you would have thought I had just shown her the contents of my hankie. Unperturbed, I turned to lady number two, �Happy Christmas,� I said in a jolly voice, as I gave her a share of the loot. She looked at me as if I had made an improper suggestion. Was I being too forward perhaps? Lady (and I use the term loosely here) number three didn�t even look at me. She went red in the face and turned away, but still managed to quickly snatch the two coins I offered. I was a bit shocked to say the least. I didn�t expect the ladies to hug me like a long-lost son. I didn�t for one minute imagine that they might fall prostrate at my feet and leave tear-stains over my trainers � but I did think they might say �thank you.� Was it too much to ask? Of course, they might have been foreign and mistook my act-of-kindness as some bizarre Cornish custom, so if you ever find yourself in this part of the world and see three strange ladies hanging around parking meters with their hands out, you�ll know who they are. To cap it all, I had now lost my place at the front of the queue and had to wait for the three stooges to get their tickets before I could get mine. From now on, I�ve decided to leave talking to Angels to Robbie Williams; he�s much better at it than I am. And now I�ll never get a fondue set! One thing�s for sure I bet each of those ladies had a sticker in their rear-window saying: |
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| MY OTHER CAR'S A BROOMSTICK |
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