Good morning, y’all. What a fantastic day to be alive. The biscuits tastes better, the gravy tastes better, and the chickens have been fried to perfection over in Athens. Since I don’t follow pro football, I’m coming out of the weekend a winner, and it feels great! Considering my recent increase in roaming range, it’s been a banner week for ol’ Bud. Not so much, for some of the other members of the TackyToo community.
Before I relate some of the downside of the week, let me make Lite of the situation:
Did you hear the one about the choir director that chased the pastor around the church?
She caught him by the organ.
My granddaddy Lowe told me that joke when I was about 10. I didn’t get it then, but I certainly do now.
Mulva has reported that the scandal between the Right Reverend Dale E. Bread and Mrs. Bread is reaching Biblical proportions. One parishoner, Constance Winer, claims to have seen Mrs. Bread abusing the snakes prior to the snakes being moved outside for the fish fry. It sounds like any snake that the Reverend Bread chose to work with would have been less than amenable to the Reverend. The fact that it was Old Ben, was just luck of the draw.
Seems there are now discussions of whether law enforcement has a place in the conundrum or not. My take is no, the Reverend knew the risks, and all that the Mrs. Bread did was raise the odds for disaster a little. Sort of like adding the second bullet to a gun in Russian roulette. Mrs. Bread didn’t make the Reverend pick up the gun, er, snake. We’ll see how it plays out. Law enforcement can show tremendous restraint in involving themselves in family matters, sometimes.
I try to steer Mulva towards a more positive development, the popularity of the replacement minister, the Reverend Helena Handbasket. The Full Gospel Original Church of God was once again packed to the rafters. Folks were coming from as far away as Atlanta to see the Reverend Handbasket wield her otherworldly magic with the serpents. Now, admittedly, the Reverend Handbasket was not working with a timber rattler yet, Old Ben has yet to be replaced. But the Reverend Handbasket‘s showmanship was without parallel, and the Elders were going to have a hard time denying her request to pay her as much as “any man”.
Truth be told, misogyny is the 11th commandment for organized religion. Very few religions allow the ordination of women into their clergy. In this regard, the Church of God is forward thinking.
Probably the most famous female clergy was Aimee Semple McPherson, a Pentecostal evangelist in the early to mid 1900’s. Her use of the radio to broadcast her sermons was the precursor to modern day televangelism. In her day, Aimee Semple McPherson was the most widely known Christian evangelist. She is widely credited with reviving the evangelical movement. Through private donations, McPherson built the Angelius Temple, considered to be the largest single Christian congregation in the world. The church was believed to have hosted over 40 million visitors in the first seven years of operation.
As we all know, scandal seems to follow success like smell on a skunk, and Aimee Semple McPherson was not without her alleged scandals. Extra marital affairs, a possible fake kidnapping and financial issues plagued Mrs. McPherson in her later days. She died in 1944 of a possible drug overdose. Over 45,000 people attended her wake. Today her church claims over eight million followers and her legacy has tentacles throughout the evangelical movement all over the world.
I suggest to Mulva that maybe we’ve got a new Aimee Semple McPherson in our midst. Paying the Reverend Helena Handbasket might be the prudent thing. We’ll see what the Elders think.