birthdays and other insignificant stuff

My birthday this year is on Palm Sunday. Pretty neat, I think.

My 33rd birthday, 31 years ago (now you know I'll be 64) was on Good Friday. I had just preached about the 7 last words of Christ, every one of them (God help us!) and was walking home from Trinity on the Green in New Haven, who had asked me to do the dastardly deed of preaching 7 times in three hours, the bells of Trinity started tolling 33 time--the age tradition tells us Jesus was on the first Good Friday.

"My God," I said to myself, crossing New Haven Green, "I'm as old as Jesus...."

My son, blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh, is now older than Jesus. My approaching birthday is fine--better than the alternative--but I feel a bit old.

My daughter, on the phone tonight from NYC, which is a real place, said, off handedly, because of something I said, "are you suddenly old?"

I replied, "No, I've been working on it for some time...."

{Warning, Warning, Warning--those who are faint of heart and don't think a priest can utter four letter words...stop reading now.}

OK, I've warned you properly.

Three things an older man should never do:

*Never get in a car without peeing first

*Never waste an erection

*Never assume it is only going to be a fart

Most of all that resides down lower than the brain.

A joke: A female brain cell, by mistake, gets into a male's brain. She is astonished that there are no other functioning brain cells around.

She calls out: "Hello! Hello! Hello!"

Faintly she hears, from way below, "Hello, we're all down here...."

***

Well, if you outlive Jesus by more than 3 decades and don't anticipate that your end is going to brutal, bloody and excruciatingly painful, that's something to aspire for, it seems to me.

Don't send me a birthday card--just write your birthday wishes on a $100 bill and send that in the mail....

Be well and stay well. May you live as long as I have....