Thinking About Monkeys

A few years ago my daughter Jamie and I exchanged a greeting card with a picture of a monkey on the front and a caption that read:

I’m thinking about monkeys….

The message inside continued the thought:

… and now you are too!

It began what’s become years of exchanging monkey cards. This year’s Valentine’s “Monkey as Cupid” may be my favorite.

Last year on Easter morning Jamie hid a card in my jacket pocket – I found it just before the first service. The outside read:

Are you thinking about monkeys?

Inside she wrote:

Then stop it! It’s Easter! Get your head in the game!

My guess is once you started reading this blog you started to think about monkeys – it’s hard not to once the idea is suggested – even harder since there’s a monkey on the computer smiling at you.

Psychologists refer to this as autosuggestion.

As I am preparing for Easter this week I’m working on keeping my head in the game and thinking about everything but monkeys. Instead I’m focusing on bread and wine and foot washing and a cross and a tomb… an empty tomb.

But sometimes it’s hard – because there are so many things shouting for attention to stay focused…. for instance right now….

all I can think about is monkeys!