Returns of the Day

When I checked my Stat Counter this morning, I discovered that my Irish visitor who's fascinated with "tube 8 farts" had returned. That's all well and good (mostly, good that my favorite fart fetish fan lives in Ireland and not down the street). But the really good part of this is my discovery that whenever the mood strikes you to learn all that the vast World Wide Web has to tell you about "tube 8 new woman farts" the first place to look is ... that's right, you guessed it ... my little off-ramp of Al Gore's information super highway. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the Academy and all you "little people" who made this possible ...

As if that weren't bloggy good karma enough for one day, we then went to church and found Tennessee Ernie/Liberace/Nick Winters once again tinkling the ivories and verging on a rousing rendition of the "Star Wars" theme. If you haven't already read that previous post (and aren't inclined to waste any more time than necessary on this pointless topic), here's the Cliff Notes version: A few weeks back a guy who looks strikingly like Tennessee Ernie Ford subbed for the entire "worship team" on Sunday morning but morphed into Liberace the moment his fingers hit the keyboard. Fifteen minutes into a medley of all your favorite hymns and praise songs that were pepped up to the point of being unsingable by the congregation, Tennessee Ernie Liberace suddenly broke into song, thus revealing his true identity as Nick Rivers, Bill Murray's lounge singer from hell (you remember the "Star Wars" guy, right?).

But unlike the music extravaganza a few weeks back, today's "worship" service began so tantalizingly close to normal -- holding (almost within reach) the promise of a real song service -- you know, one in which the congregation actually ... dare we hope ... sings). We began with an honest-to-God hymn -- "It is Well With my Soul"). Admittedly, the sustaining notes had a few more thumb-rolls than your standard-issue hymn, but it was still recognizable as a song with a regular-enough beat that we could conceivably all gustily join in. Things began their leftward turn when Tennessee-Liberace-Winters had us stand for the offertory. He looked up from his fancy finger work about halfway through the second verse of the Doxology ("Holy, Holy, Holy! All the saints adore thee, casting down their golden crowns ...") and discovered (much to his surprise) that the congregation was more than a little distracted by the passing of offering plates. It seems standing and singing for the offertory proves somewhat awkward -- what with folks having just two hands with which to juggling hymnals, offering plates, billfolds and wallets.

Oh well, just a little misstep there. After all, Christianity is all about forgiveness and bearing with each other, isn't it? So ... we managed to get the plates down the aisles and the Doxology concluded ("... God in three persons, bles-sed Tri-ni-ty!") with just one surprise change of key. We then sang a "praise song" that no one had heard before, but if you know any four bars of any praise song you know them all, so (though we, as a congregation, did have to mumble our way through some of the tune) again, no harm no foul. Then Liberace did what he's always wanted to do -- he abandoned his candelabra-bedecked Steinway and strolled over to center stage where he regaled us with his microphone-swallowing Nick Winters shtick. It was the perfect set-up for a sermon about "Promotion".

After the substitute pastor finished his ten points on how much God wants to bless us monetarily, Joyce and I quietly walked out, got in the car and agreed, "If what that 'preacher' says about God is true, then Jesus sure blew His shot at prosperity, didn't He?"