(for the other dub dopers)
Just beside St James church on James St, just up from the Guinness brewery, there’s a new evangelical church.
The sign says
“Real Problems
Real Solutions
Real People
Sinners Welcome”.
I think they lost most people with the last line.
My church’s idea of evangelism is washing parked cars and leaving a note under the windscreen wiper saying “your car was cleaned by St Mark’s FWC”.
I passed a street preacher the other day who informed the passing throng that “One of the names of the Creator is The Happy God.” Admittedly it’s been a while since I read the Bible cover to cover, but I don’t remember that bit. Loving, merciful, kind, vengeful, jealous, omnipotent and so forth, yes, but “happy”? No.
In fact, the only “happy God” reference I can remember is in that Simpsons episode where Bart uses his Mr. Microphone to convince Rod and Tod Flanders to walk into a wall. Maybe he was thinking of that?
So…Can we assume that the “moron” is one of those particles which travels backwards in time? I’m theorising that it has the intellect of the propogator piggybacked with it as it travels backwards into the 15th century.
Irishgirl, I so meant to take a picture of it, but they took it down before I could: there’s a large 2-storey building on Pearse Street that had a gigantic fabric poster put on one side of it for that multi-denominational evangelist campaign they had running a few months ago. It was a head-and-shoulders photo of a real guy who had been saved by the church or some such thing, and it had the campaign URL and phone number and stuff. Except written at the bottom, just under the guy’s smiling face, in letters that must have been tiny before they blew the artwork up to fit the building, were the words “NOT ACTUAL SIZE”.
Genius.
When I was about 15 or 16, I was flying back from Dallas to Detroit after visiting my best friend in Texas.
I had an aisle seat. In the window seat was a business man being very busy. In the middle…woooo…was my first brush with someone trying to save me.
The clothes should have tipped me off. Plaid polyester pants. Checked shirt. A suit coat that totally pulled the entire outfit together with its larger contrasting plaid colors. White socks and docksider shoes. It was the last two that set off my internal " What’s up with That?" alarm.
I was a pretty shy kid, always respectful of my elders and blessed with a fast wit and blessed with a BS detector that belied my school girl looks.
We sat on the runway for about thirty minutes or so before the Captain came on stating that we would be stuck on the tarmack for at least another 45 minutes because of all the traffic.
The entire plane groans. Including me because my mom will be waiting for me, nervously, at the airport and I have no way to relay the delay.
The business man in the window seat just keeps working on whatever was so pressing.
Mr. Contrast next to me says kindly, " That’s alright. We are in the hands of Jesus."
I made the critical mistake of making eye contact with him and before I knew it, this guy was going on about Jesus being his personal savior and I was sitting there feeling really. uncomfortable.
The businessman shot me a look of *Tough break kid. * and kept his nose in his paperwork.
Mr. Contrast asks me all nice and kind, " Have you found Jesus?"
My mind raced along in hyper drive thinking of what I could say that would end this nonsense once and for all, but I didn’t want to be offensive. Then, in an out of body experience, just a moment after Mr. Contract asked his question, I replied, " I didn’t know he was lost."
The businessman had to stifle his laughter and that shut up the loonie between us for the rest of our journey.
When we landed, the businessman caught up with me and congratulated me on such a perfect reply and that he’d have to remember to use it one day. It was a great moment for me.
And when Lt. Dan and Forrest Gump used the same line , I burst out laughing in the theater.