A Journal of Humor and Verbal Anarchy

 
in god we trust

Ez hasn't always been an atheist. In fact, he grew up Catholic. Which meant that Ez spent his formative years ducking pediophile priests and death's head nuns. He had a chance to be an altar boy but he was afraid that the priest would slip some spanish fly into the communion wine. In those days no one knew what a pediophile was. You knew, however, that something was up when the priest opened the grate in the confessional and tried to stick his tongue in your ear. You just didn't know what to call it.

Lately, though, something has been missing in Ez's life. Besides all the things that he gave up when he moved to Ithaca. Like the excitement, a sense of being on some kind of career track, of even having a career. for that matter; friends, a feeling of community with all the Puerto Ricans that lived behind the plaster-thin walls that separated you from your neighbors. A lot went out of Ez's life when he moved to nadaland. Nature abhors a vaccuum so it's not surprising that he started thinking recently about rejoining a church. It's important to believe in something bigger than yourself. You know. Besides corporations, the US Government, SUV's.

Ithaca sure has a lot of churches. A lot of them are clumped together around Dewitt Park. that corner of Ithaca should be renamed Redemption Row The founding fathers obviously wanted people to think that Ithaca was a decent, upright kind of place to settle. Window dresssing, as it were. Otherwise, DeWitt Park would have been full of muffler repair shops and fast food franchises. Which would sure have helped the tax base.

So Ez decided to sample the spiritual life around Ithaca. Instead of wasting perfectly good Sunday mornings visiting each church, Ez opted to check them out in the newspapers. After all, you can tell a lot about a church by the choice of weekly sermon topics. Sermonizing is like blogging. Every week you've got to come up with a different homily. You can bore some of the parishoners some of the time, you can bore all the parishioners some of the time but, if you bore all the parishoners all of the time, eventually you'll miss their envelopes in the basket. Look at Ithaca Sucks. Who reads IS? Not even its godfather, the poor slob who spent hours designing our website, reads it anymoe.

Ez went to the Ithaca Journal and scoped out the local church roundup. Here's what he found.

St Paul's Methodist Church - The sermon topic was "Jesus and the Money Changers - a new appraisal." Ok, a little revisionistic, but interesting.

St. John's Episcipal - "No Gay Priests Here!" Hey, at least they're honest.

First Baptist Church of Ithaca - "Does Jesus Want You to Open a 401K?" I beg your pardon?

First Prebysterian Church - "The Loaves and Fishes - A Parable of Wealth."

Immaculate Conception RC - "Let Bygones be Bygone." In other words, don't join the suit against Father So and So. He didn't mean to hurt those altar boys.

Oh, well. Ez decided to watch Mass on cable tv.from Lyon, France. At least, they don't come around with the baskets and they still recite the Mass in Latin. Good chance to brush up on his dead languages.
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 7:07 AM