Cramming for Finals

We’re told that a coed went to visit her grandmother and discovered her sitting in her favorite rocking chair reading the Bible.  Having never seen her grandmother reading the Bible before, she was curious. “Whatcha doin’, Grannie? Cramming for your finals?”

Ah yes. Cram. An interesting word.  Commonly meaning to force a thing into something (like cramming a body into a swim suit after a sedentary winter) it also means preparing intensely for an examination.

What we have here is a hypothetical happening.  Ms Coed had never seen her grandmother reading the Bible.  Perhaps not so unusual because there are some grannies who are swingers, quite non-religious or even a bit hostile.  We don’t know what this grandmother was, really.  Maybe she was indifferent or hostile to religious matters or spiritual concerns during her lifetime.

Or, perhaps she was a private person, not ostentatious or pretentious, and did her spiritual exercises in private.  After all, praying and reading the Bible (or any other religious book) can be done to show off just as it can be a very private, personal matter.

Whatever, Ms Coed was surprised.  Maybe she was horrified that her grandmother, who relished her visits, was getting religious.  That could be a revolting development for a granddaughter who was flabbergasted, who thought her grannie was worldly-wise, sophisticated, unburdened by any religious obsession.  This could have been a revolting revelation to her, a most sobering moment.

On the other hand, maybe the granddaughter had been deeply concerned for her esteemed relative who had shown no signs of spirituality, who was totally self-reliant, needed no divine inspiration and even revealed some signs of hostility toward family members who had shown signs of weakness by getting religious.  Maybe the granddaughter had gone to a secular college totally expecting to get a profane education but ran into some religious die hards who invited her into their camaraderie, changing her whole outlook, spiritually and otherwise.  Now she was delighted that her grandmother had begun to show some positive signs which startled but delighted her.

Since we don’t know who the coed is, we do the next best.  We form an opinion.  This is so natural that we do it unconsciously.  We make Ms Coed a villain or a saint.  We create a sophisticate or a novice.  We read between the lines but often fail to understand the words.

Yes. These are senior moments.  We can sit in our rocking chairs and let the world go by or we can sit and make the world take notice.  In other words, whatever we do, someone is watching, making judgments, arriving or jumping at conclusions.

In a sense, we’re all cramming for our finals, one way or another. Makes us wonder what our grandkids really think, doesn’t it?