Message in a massage

Del Boy

Call me old-fashioned, but I've never been in a massage parlour. I associate it with "things a member in good standing in a Presbyterian Church doesn't do." But this past week I received a note in my church mail-box suggesting that having a massage before speaking in public was a good way to overcome a case of the jitters.

The note came in one of those rather posh envelopes which spoke of your typical middle-class PCA member! Inside was a page torn from the Reader's Digest. No exxplanation -- just this page. On one side it advertised a new diet regimen -- you know the sort of thing: eat nuts for 3 days, then drink 20 gallons of water for 2 days, then fast for 2 days and follow that with "you can eat as much red meat as you want" etc. Obviously this side of the page was not for me, I thought.

The other side was the massage before the message column. Was this an attempt to redeem the culture of the massage parlour and win another masseuse for Jesus? If so, I have to overcome my phobia of the phatom masseuse.

It reminds me of a speaking engagement I did a few years ago. I had been invited to lunch at the lovely home of a couple who were members at the church. During a break between courses, the husband had gone into the garden for some reason at which point the wife got up and began to massage my shoulders telling me that she had been a masseuse and that my shoulders were tense! Tense is not the word for it. I got up and walked into the garden and in the direction of the husband, her hands following me all the way. I still have the heebie-jeebies thinking about it.

The note I received was anonymous and I had broken my rule: "never read anonymous notes."