Speakaphobia

Sometimes, I accidentally say the most absurd and inappropriate thing at the worst time. It's an embarrassing compulsion but one I've tried to get ahold of. It's as if my mouth grows a brain of it's own and starts operating autonomously from the rest of my body.

But last night it struck again, wild and out of nowhere, and left everyone in the room laughing hysterically, including myself. But I also felt terribly embarrassed.

This is how it went: We were spending the evening with new friends, an artist and a musician who work at a local church. They have a daughter a couple years older than Noelle and then a newborn baby.

We've met them through mutual friends and spent time together briefly in groups with others, but this wast the first time we've spent time with them alone, just getting to know each other.

They started the evening announcing the good news that they had just accepted a new position at a large church here in the San Gabriel valley. The position is full-time and will allow them to write music and be more creative.

We were all talking excitedly about this new opportunity when we stumbled across the topic of how strange working at a church is. How churches are not quite a business, but somehow need to be run like a business.

Everyone was agreeing and adding quickly to each other's comments, and a phrase began forming in the back of my mind....that churches are a unique organism.

Excitedly I lifted my hand in the air to emphasize my point, but somewhere between my head and my mouth the words got garbled and this is what came out, loudly, and right in the middle of conversation, me sitting perched on the edge of my seat:

"Churches are like an ORGASM!"