Humor

Celebration Has Become a Way of Life for Me

by James Snyder 
08/19/17
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I have just celebrated my birthday, my wife’s birthday and our wedding anniversary. I am not sure how old I am or how long we have been married and I won’t even go to my wife’s age. I’m old enough to know better.

I have long past the idea of candles on my birthday cake representing one candle per year. The fire department will not give us a permit to do that.

Someone asked me how long we have been married and without even thinking, I said, “Forever.” Once that word danced out of my lips I knew I was in trouble with the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage. One look from her, and I knew that my forever had ended.

All seriousness aside, celebrations are wonderful opportunities, at least from my point of view, to gorge myself with cake. After all, if it is my birthday or anniversary or my wife’s birthday, I should be respectful enough to eat the cake presented.

At my age, I’m not too concerned about eating healthy. That's why I love the holidays.

Between holidays, my wife insists on eating healthy. I cannot even name all of the vegetables that appear on our table at suppertime. I think they are vegetables, my wife says they are vegetables, but I am not so sure about it. My wife believes that if it is green and leafy it must be a vegetable.

I, on the other hand, with a fork in each hand, have had enough vegetables I want to get to the celebratory cake. After all, what is the sense in celebrating a birthday or an anniversary if you cannot eat the cake presented? Especially if it is my birthday.

I will give my wife the latitude to put vegetables, so-called, on our dinner table between our celebrations. The problem is, my birthday, her birthday and our anniversary are within three weeks of each other. That means, there are 49 weeks that I have to put up with vegetables.

Therefore, I am a great one when it comes to celebrating something. Anything. I am so glad that our culture is assisting me in this. It has come to the point where there is a celebration for every day of the year. I do not care what I’m celebrating, as long as cake is involved, I’m right there. After all, I certainly don’t want to offend anybody.

In my carefulness to not offend anybody in this regard, I have on occasion offended my wife. She is a vegetableaholic if ever there was one. She even eats vegetables as a snack. Once at a church fellowship, she brought in a huge plate of raw vegetables, insinuating it was a snack tray.

Recently, I was sitting in my lazy-boy chair, drinking a nice hot cup of coffee and reflecting on the important issues of life. I cannot tell you how many problems in this world I have solved if only somebody would listen to me.

However, in my muse a wonderful thought embraced several grey cells. What if, and I don’t have any legitimate documentation on this, when we get to heaven, it is a celebration every day with cake only an angel could bake? And what if, every day it was somebody’s birthday and we needed to celebrate it? That certainly would make heaven for me.

Further, in my muse, what if there were no vegetables whatsoever to be found at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb? That too would make heaven, heaven for me. What if all we had at that table was cake, pie, ice cream and soda pop? Wouldn't that just be divine?

I think most people, particularly my wife, take this matter of eating healthy too seriously. I think when a person eats it should be an enjoyable experience and not a ragged old duty.

I wonder what kind of soda pop they will have in heaven? I’m sure it will not be a diet soda. Why would we be dieting in heaven?

What if, and again, I am speculating, everyone in heaven is fat? Everyone is fat, eating, laughing and enjoying themselves. Wouldn’t that be a shock to some people? I’m not saying it is, but who’s to say it isn’t? A person can dream, can’t they?

That certainly would be something worth celebrating.

In the midst of all this musing, my wife happened to walk in and said, “What in the world are you smiling at?”

I confess it caught me a little off guard. I looked at her, still smiling and said, “I was thinking about heaven and the great time we are going to have celebrating up there.”

I did not give her any particulars, because it was my dream. All she said was, “I think it’ll be a wonderful time up there celebrating.”

Her idea of celebrating may not be exactly my idea of celebrating, but then why get caught up in particulars. Her celebration may be different from my celebration, but if both of us are happy in that celebrating atmosphere, what’s the harm?

I couldn’t help but think of what Jesus once said to his disciples. “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (John 6:51).

The best celebration that I know of is feasting upon that “living bread” which is none other than Jesus Christ.