A little divine fun

Here’s a little story to brighten up your Monday.

Sister Sheila is a nun and theology professor at the university where I work, and she taught a workshop on St. Francis of Assisi that I recently attended. We talked about the life of simplicity that St. Francis lived, a life that Sister Sheila seeks to emulate. She only has about four changes of clothes, and she doesn’t receive a regular salary, only a small monthly allowance. She worries that she has more books than are necessary, and she very generously gave me one after class one day. (I personally believe in book hoarding as the one exception to the general rule that you shouldn’t accumulate too much stuff. But I’ve decided that things have gotten a little out of hand when I began noticing that going to a lot of used book sales has made me forget which books I have, and hence buy duplicates.)

Anyway, despite living a very simple life, Sister Sheila knows how to have fun. She and some of the other nuns were on retreat at the Jersey shore one summer, walking along the hot beach.

“You know what I could use right now?” she mused.

“Yeah, yeah, we know how much you like a good cold beer,” her companions said. But they were on retreat, so the only drinks available back at the retreat house were lemonade and iced tea.

They kept walking along the beach.

—Pause for dramatic effect.—

A wave. Washed up on the shore. And deposited with it. An unopened bottle of Coors Light. At Sister Sheila’s feet.

“God is so good to me!” she exclaimed.

But she did get some ice to put in it first.