July 29, 2007
On God and the Senator
We used to occasionally say "Gee, Dad, why don't you go to church with us?"
To which he would reply, stirring his first drink of a Sunday, "Why, the universe is my church, son. The fecund fields, the rising corn. This is my cathedral. I don't need a four square box to find my God. And when I die, I don't need a coffin. Just throw me out in the fields and let the buzzards pick me clean."
To which my mother would invariably reply, "No problem."
My dad never went either. Reminds me of that Norman Rockwell painting where the wife and kids are dressed up in their Sunday finery and the man of the house is sitting there in his bathrobe drinking a cup of coffee. Baleful glare from Mom on the way out the door, pleading looks from kids (although he wouldn't intervene; that would mean his quiet Sunday morning would be taken away. No, for us it was Sunday school and making Jesus-family puppets out of popsicle sticks and paper cutouts. I guess the adults thought that would be educational and entertaining. They didn't see the Jesus-fight my brothers had with their puppets).
Our minister was something, though. Very entertaining. Reverend Su and his wife had come over from China during the revolution. He was quite the zealous evangelist. A real hell-fire and brimstone kinda guy. He always managed to make a few little children cry during his sermon. Sometimes he'd go completely off his nut and start screaming in Chinese. Dad didn't know what he missed.
And I still don't really know what being a Presbyterian is all about, other than they believe in potluck dinners and hair-raising sermons.
Posted by: Peggy U at July 29, 2007 1:04 PMI kinda have to agree with your pop. Why do we have to go to the "church" to get religion?
Posted by: Dash at July 29, 2007 5:23 PMI'm the one who doesn't go in this house. But... I'd just as soon not have the buzzards pick me clean. Then again... I'll be dead, so I won't really care. There is that.
Posted by: Bou at July 29, 2007 10:57 PMJust what we need...a bunch of buzzards stumbling around with BAC's of 0.15, saying to each other, "What the fuck was that we just ate?"
Posted by: Elisson at July 30, 2007 6:23 AMI think I would have gotten along real well with the VelociDad. Sounds like good people.
And now, since it's my day off, I think I'll see if I can't get staggering blind drunk before 8 in the A.M.
In his memory, and because a mans got to have goals, or he just withers up and dies.
Posted by: Randy Rager at July 30, 2007 7:27 AMGoing to church does not make you spiritual no more than standing in the garage makes you a car.
I heartily agree with the Sen.
Snort -- right on, Elisson! Hafta say I pretty much agree with the Senator, buzzards'n'all!
Posted by: Marianne at July 30, 2007 8:34 PM