My spouse’s grandmother, of Finnish extraction, says that “lunupi” (sp?) is a Finnish word for when you give someone’s (probably a kid’s) head a hard flick with your finger. My father used to do this occasionally (though he was not Finnish) — and he had big wide fingers so it really stung!
Anyway, yesterday morning I was grocery shopping, and feeling very put out because though I waited in the checkout line a long time, someone else pushed to the front of the line when a new checker came. I went into snit mode, and was barely civil to the checker when I finally got there. And then I heard a greeting behind me, and it was a friend with her young son who is just now recovering from cancer. He was looking very yellowish gray, but his mom was ecstatic because this week was the first time he has voluntarily eaten food in over a year.
I don’t believe in a punishing God, but I think He is perfectly capable of delivering a lunupi when nothing else will get our attention. In this case, it was enough to shift me out of my crappy mood and into — if not quite gratitude, then certainly the awareness that gratitude is appropriate and necessary. Thanks, God.
I love the humor in which you see this. Truly I think one of the secrets of life is learning to see our own faults with a sense of humor, not taking ourselves too seriously. You’ve got that down.
My dad used to flick us on the head as an attention getter as well. It’s the sort of thing that would be seen as abuse now. I certainly didn’t like it then, but I don’t remember it in a bad way.
gordon123
November 28th, 2007
My mom used to thunk (not a typo) us on the head, too. I never heard the word lunupi before, but it’s so appropriate!
I had a friend who used to call those up-short kind of moments “God-whammys”.
Another one likes to talk about how the Good Shepherd throws rocks if he can’t get our attention any other way.
Whatever it takes, I guess!
ITW
November 28th, 2007
[...] Anyway, yesterday morning I was grocery shopping, and feeling very put out because though I waited in the checkout line a long time, someone else pushed to the front of the line when a new checker came. I went into snit mode, and was barely civil to the checker when I finally got there…Click here to read more. [...]
Lunupis : HighCallingBlogs.com
December 5th, 2007