A funeral this important, and no casseroles?

[shereads]

The pope is enjoying a spectacular send-off, but the living wish they were in the South. Funeral food is a specialty of Southern cooks. The young people are too lazy to make funeral food so they buy a Honey-Baked Ham that gets larger every time you take it out of the refrigerator to make a sandwich.

Meanwhile, in Rome:

Dubya hates Clinton more by the moment. It's bad enough that Clinton has bonded with Dubya's Daddy and that they get each others' jokes. To make matters worse, the mass is in Latin and Clinton is smiling and nodding and softly adding an "amen," now and then, like he gets it. (This is a joke that Clinton and Bush Sr. worked out on the plane on the way over.)

 

[NoJo]

I do that in synagogue. I can't speak a word of aramaic, or whatever it is they're talking. Not only that, but I can't read the script in the prayer book. Luckily I'm religious enough to get away with it.

 

[Guest]

Meanwhile, in Rome:

Dubya hates Clinton more by the moment. It's bad enough that Clinton has bonded with Dubya's Daddy and that they get each others' jokes. To make matters worse, the mass is in Latin and Clinton is smiling and nodding and softly adding an "amen," now and then, like he gets it. (This is a joke that Clinton and Bush Sr. worked out on the plane on the way over.)

Poor little Dubya, I'm embarrassed for him. Well, at least he didn't have to postpone his wedding for it. Charley boy looks decidedly peeved.

 

[shereads]

I confess:

I started watching the mass because of the music, and I'm stunned. There's no denying the power of this medieval ceremony in a courtyard designed centuries ago by geniuses who knew just how to set the stage for a God-sized pageant...with the wind making the red robes flutter like sails...For sheer show-business, I've never seen anything like it. If the blood shed in the name of the church were poured over the Vatican right now, it would drown the leaders of the developed world. But the images are so powerful, you can only imagine how terrifying it would have been to be ordered to, say, take back Jerusalem from the heretics, and to refuse. Forget it. Who would have the courage?

 

[snooper]

I do that in synagogue. I can't speak a word of aramaic, or whatever it is they're talking. Not only that, but I can't read the script in the prayer book. Luckily I'm religious enough to get away with it.

You remind me of the old sea captain who was stone deaf. When asked how he knew when to stand, or sit, or kneel during the services, he replied, "I just sits at the back, keeps a sharp look-out, and rises and falls with the tide."

Seriously, if you don't understand the language, and can't read the script, in what sense of the word do you participate in the ceremony; and why do you go at all?

 

[Guest]

when young, i was forced to go to baptist church twice a year...
easter and christmas...
i wonder if we went just the for cut up hotdog rolls and cranberry juice called 'his flesh and blood'
we werent rich so, that might have been it, but i thought baptists were supposed to eat better than that!
oh i did come away from church with some fun ditty's...'Gory be thy father'...yeah thats what i thought it was. it went ever so well with the picture in the foyer of the goat with a billion eyes being slaughtered and blood pouring out everywhere.
this might have been about the first thing that turned me off of religion...poor radiated goat...

edited to add:
oh yeah... Maunday Thursday is confusing as hell when youre young... couldnt they have explained that its not celebrating two week days together?

 

[ElizabethWest]

Did someone say casserole?

EW_southern girl

and baptist, Vella, when I used to care about such things...

 

[Guest]

Did someone say casserole?

EW_southern girl

and baptist, Vella, when I used to care about such things...

holy rollers untie!
*btw, love that location...*

 

[ElizabethWest]

holy rollers untie!
*btw, love that location...*

It's when I start speaking in tongues that you need to worry.

 

[evesdream]

You remind me of the old sea captain who was stone deaf. When asked how he knew when to stand, or sit, or kneel during the services, he replied, "I just sits at the back, keeps a sharp look-out, and rises and falls with the tide."

Seriously, if you don't understand the language, and can't read the script, in what sense of the word do you participate in the ceremony; and why do you go at all?

the thing is, it's all let's pretend. like dungeons & dragons.

 

[Guest]

It's when I start speaking in tongues that you need to worry.

ok...so, dont laugh...oh alright, you will anyway.
so...picture this:
wife wants to make hubby happy. she figures that going to church because he wants to might be a good way...so, they join this unitarian church. holy shit! i kid you not, this place was a palace!
i digress.
we were there every sunday for what.... a month? before i felt like my eyes and ears would bleed. (ive a high tolerance level)
people were singing in tongues...atfirst i thought it was because they didnt know the words, but my suspicion grew when they began to flail about and skip in the asiles. what fresh hell was this?
when i did things like that, it was at a major party, not some supposedly refined unitarian church. i couldnt make myself go any longer... it was the stench of money that finally did me in. yes, im happy to give money to those in need but...i dont think they needed any more crystal chandeliers or golden coffers. spank you very much.

 

[ElizabethWest]

Sorry, Vella dear...but....LMAO!!!

I know exactly what you mean. One of many reasons I don't participate anymore.

 

[Guest]

Sorry, Vella dear...but....LMAO!!!

I know exactly what you mean. One of many reasons I don't participate anymore.

when mom married my step father...they had both been in AA for many years. why they felt the need to have a 'man of the cloth' (no not a tailor) do the ceremony, ill never know.
it was a lovely day... we held it out on the lawn on the edge of the water and the minister begins with:

"God bless these tortured souls"


BBBBAAAAAHHHHHHAAAAhhhhhhaaaa.
i had to pretend i was having an allergy attack... at 13 y.o. i found that rediculously funny. bless them? fuck me! how about the rest of us? i had to go sailing...left the ceremony and just went sailing with the rest of the delinquent crew.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Seriously, if you don't understand the language, and can't read the script, in what sense of the word do you participate in the ceremony; and why do you go at all?

For 2000 years most Catholics couldn't understand the words used in the Mass, and now there are plenty of them who wish it were still done in Latin. The same principle that says that the monster you don't see in a horror movie is scarier than the one you do see, insures that the words you don't understand in a prayer are even more potent and magical than the ones you do understand.

I used to read Hebrew, though I didn't understand it. But there's something to be said for speaking the same language God speaks, and the same words that your ancestors have been stumbling over for the last 3000 years.

--Zoot

 

[cloudy]

I used to read Hebrew, though I didn't understand it. But there's something to be said for speaking the same language God speaks, and the same words that your ancestors have been stumbling over for the last 3000 years.

--Zoot

I agree with that last part, Zoot.

I'm slowly, but surely, learning the Cherokee language (it's hard - there's sounds that we don't make in english), and although it's a struggle for me, it's also nice to know that the language won't die, and is in fact, making a comeback. Some tribes are desperately trying to save their language from disappearing.

There's something so connected about speaking the same language that your ancestors that lived centuries ago spoke.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

. . . Seriously, if you don't understand the language, and can't read the script, in what sense of the word do you participate in the ceremony; and why do you go at all?

Obviously you are under the mistaken impression that all Line Dancers know how to Line Dance.

I am not surprised that Bill Clinton and George Bush Senior were able to form some kind of bond. They belong to one of the most exclusive clubs in the world, and only those two on their flight have the gift of rational thought.

 

[NoJo]

You remind me of the old sea captain who was stone deaf. When asked how he knew when to stand, or sit, or kneel during the services, he replied, "I just sits at the back, keeps a sharp look-out, and rises and falls with the tide."

Seriously, if you don't understand the language, and can't read the script, in what sense of the word do you participate in the ceremony; and why do you go at all?

Tradition!

Plus I like the ladies' hats.

 

[LadyJeanne]

My family's religion is Eastern Orthodox (Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, etc.). Depending on whether we were in a Serbian or Macedonian church, I could maybe manage to understand most of the language, BUT our ministers cant the entire thing.

Despite all that, I enjoyed the incense and the stained glass and hushed reverence in the church - maybe the one time per week people thought of others rather than just themselves. It was moving. Not meaningful necessarily, but moving.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

"The Pope is dead, Christians suck, aren't we so much better!"... I get it, I get it; can we move on?

 

[Guest]

"The Pope is dead, Christians suck, aren't we so much better!"... I get it, I get it; can we move on?

erm...not a point i was trying to make, if you were referring to anything i wrote. i make it a point to be as pointless as possible...its easier that way.
where would you like to move, btw?

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Oh, I vote for most anything else.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

Oh, I vote for most anything else.

You are being most catholic in your options, if not in your interpretation, Joe.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Please do let it drop. It's repulsive enough watching the media make a 7-day circus of it.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

You are being most catholic in your options, if not in your interpretation, Joe.

Howso?

 

[English Lady]

Please do let it drop. It's repulsive enough watching the media make a 7-day circus of it.

Seconded!