Sunday

Good Times Where There's Not Always Teens Playing Their Music

Your Eminence, I really have to tell you something today. I mean, we’re both men of God, sure, but once in a great while I feel we should open up our inner selves as men of the world. You don’t mind if I hit you with a little shot of reality, do you? You’d be down with that, right? The thing I’ve always wanted to say is that for me, what it’s all about is what we’re doing right now---walking along very slowly across a perfectly manicured lawn with a flawlessly trimmed hedge to our right, a big marble fountain to our left, and our hands clasped behind our backs while speaking quietly. Call me a man of simple tastes, but this has always just totally buttered my toast. Ever since I was a little kid watching a movie involving some scene of high-ranking church types walking very slowly across a perfectly manicured lawn with a flawlessly trimmed hedge to their right, a big marble fountain to their left, and some genuine clasped-hands-‘n’-quiet-speaking action being rocked out, I thought to myself, “Man, that looks killer. Stick me in a red cap in a tasteful garden setting and flank my sorry ass with a cardinal or a bishop on a sunny day and I’d be king of the world.” And it’s turned out to be one of those rare things that’s even better than advertised. And who’d have thought that it’s really all we do as church elders? Seriously, you’d think there’d be no way we could be out here in this same garden-type-thing every goddamn morning strolling along and yakking in low voices about this-and-that without someone eventually catching on that no actual work is getting done, but nope! Anyway, I know you’re more into the whole Jesus angle of what we do, and that’s very cool. I just felt the need to express a little appreciation for this particular activity and let you know that if you were ever having thoughts like, “Hmm, I wonder if the garden setting strolling is getting a tad stale for Father De Brickassart,” the answer is a bag fat “No freaking way, Goddie!” When I think that tomorrow morning you and I are going to calmly and respectfully discuss expanding the Ottawa seminaries’ reach into the community while we cruise past the marble fountain for the millionth time and regard the hedge and maybe get a little crazy by unclasping our hands from behind our backs to touch a rose or something, I get completely deked. You know what really caps it off? It’s when we pause briefly at the end of ol’ Mr. Hedge so you can totally blow me away with one of those pithy conversation-ending recollections that manages to tie our whole discussion into some religious anecdote that cuts to the heart of the matter in like eight seconds. When you drop one of those mothers on me, I can almost hear some director somewhere shouting “Aaaaaand….cut! Print it!” Let’s shoot for one of those moments today, okay, your Eminence?

Crap, I heard it was going to rain tomorrow. This whole vibe just does not work if we’re wearing the giveaway parkas we got that time we went to the Packers game.