Saint Francis and the Awkward Moment

October 1, 2016 by JoAnna 25 Comments

First, thank you to Joey for filling in for Linda Hill on today’s Stream of Consciousness prompt. I hope Linda is doing well, and I appreciate these prompts every week. Joey’s prompt for today is the word,”awkward.”

So many awkward moments I could write about. But I really want to write about Saint Francis of Assisi because tomorrow is his feast day, when we celebrate his birth and life.

The first thing that comes to mind in the SOC intersection of Saint Francis and “awkward,” is the story about him taking all his clothes off in the middle of town in front of God and everybody. I’ll bet his family was mortified. They were a wealthy and prominent family and must have thought he had lost his mind. But Francis had had enough of the materialistic lifestyle and wanted to do something else. He was called to help the sick and to preach to the animals. He gave up his possessions and founded an order that became the Franciscans.

A statue of Saint Francis and the wolf in Cinque Terra, Itally

 

I hope his parents eventually appreciated his strangeness that was part of being outside the box. It reminds me of that poem about the “crazy ones.”

 

This kinda reminds me of my son, though he has never taken his clothes off in public. Not to my knowledge anyway.

And I’m not going to tell you about my high school graduation night. Nope. No way. But it was in 1974, when streaking was a thing, so you can imagine….. I’ll just say, it was definitely awkward.Damn, that Stream of Consciousness. I better stop now. Pull this boat over and tie it to a dock. I mean, what would Saint Francis think about me mentioning streaking in his post? This is awkward.

Here’s to all the awkward moments. May we learn to laugh about them.

If you’d like to read more Streams of Consciousness about “awkward,” visit:

https://lindaghill.com/2016/09/30/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-116/

Here are the SOC rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours.  Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!