Posts Tagged ‘church’

In a stunning turn of events at the Papal Conclave in Vatican City, the College of Cardinals has displayed bovine passivity in shunning more religious candidates and instead electing Elsie the Cow as the new Pope. For her papacy, Elsie will take the name of Lactose the Tolerant.

 

Groan Appetit Pilgrims: Punnery in the Nunnery

When asked to comment on Elsie’s selection, church spokesman Bishop Elihu Borden remarked, “We knew the Church was looking to moooove in a new direction, but this is udderly amazing.”

 

Long after the white smoke emanating from the Sistine Chapel indicated a new Pontiff had been elected, church officials delayed the announcement of the cow Pope in order to really “milk the moment.” The Church hierarchy can’t seem to figure out how the cow lobby managed this historic election, and they don’t expect any insider explanation either because nobody likes a cattletale.

 

Lactose the Tolerant is expected to take up in the Vatican with her husband Red Bull. By all accounts “Red” sleeps very little, and when he does, he keeps Elsie up with all his snorting. We’re told he’s requested decorators to remove all the red curtains in the Pope’s bedroom which seem to enrage the papal consort.

 

The new Pope is a brown Guernsey from Britain. At her investiture a reporter from the inhouse publication L’Osservatore Romano was allowed one question.

Reporter:    How now brown cow?

Lactose the Tolerant:    How now brown cow? Do you know how many times I’ve been asked that? Next. Oh, that’s it then. OK. Well, I’d just like to say I’m looking forward to the new Popemobile.        

 

 

Vati-cans and Vati-cants: Do’s and Don’ts in the New Bovine Papal Order

 

1. In keeping with the spiritual ascendancy of foraging livestock, the Church’s supreme hymnal has been changed to “Amazing Graze.”
2. In a sign of things to come, it was reported that Elsie’s milk (Lactose the Tolerant’s milk) will not be homogenized due to sensitivities within the Church about anything with the word “homo” in it. Her milk shall be pasteurized only and referred to as EVMM (Extra Virgin Mother’s Milk)
3. Henceforth, during communion, sacramental milk will replace sacramental wine as the blood of Cheesus Christ – the True Dairy Savior.
4. Traditionally a papal bull is a type of public decree issued by a pope through the organ of the Vatican Press Office. Lactose the Tolerant however, is expected to issue her first Papal Bull (a baby papal bull) through her own personal organ.
5. Cow-tipping is now a venial sin and instead of meatless Fridays, Lactose the Tolerant has mandated meatless lifetimes.
6. In deference to the herding instinct of the Pope’s new flock, she has instituted a new university of higher learning called Flock U. So, if you’re a beast of prey in search of salvation, the Church heartily suggests you go Flock yourself.
7. The Vatican kitchen will no longer serve veal (unless the life of the mother is at steak). Conversely, the kitchen will now begin serving cow pies, cud spuds and gummi grass.

 

Some critics are forecasting that Lactose the Tolerant’s papacy will be “all mitre and no cattle.” Other more charitable observers believe the Church has chosen well and that placing a herding animal at the head of the Church will only make shepherding the flock that much easier.

Hay, you herd it here first folks. The good news is that there is a new wind blowing through St. Peter’s Basilica. The bad news is that it’s filled with methane.

In an unlikely marriage of high tech and high mass, Google Inc. has vowed to purchase the 2000 year old Christian start-up and convert it from a parochial relic of medieval luminosity, to a go-to search engine of latter day enlightenment. In other words to reimagine the Church, not as some vestigial sanctuary of last resort, but as a relevant refuge of first resort – and without all the resort fees.

 

Google promises to create an online spiritual haven far beyond the binary limitations of earthly design – a transformative resort where true seekers can purge themselves of barnacled beliefs and pardonable, but entrenched assumptions in preparation for boundary-dissolving experiences. These experiences, they say, will illuminate both the poignancy and absurdity of life’s predicament. And Google hopes to accomplish all this, not with a prophet, but at a profit.

 

Some say we should genuflect to our digitally savvy superiors and welcome them with a hearty “All hail the coming of our spiritual overlord – Wi-Fi? Why not?”  More cautionary voices insist we, “Slow down there Mr. Univac. Your glorified abacus is just an electronic toy here to serve us. Remember, you’re made in God’s image and not vice-versa.” These are the typical binary talking points you get on earth whenever transformative change is in the air.

 

Reflecting the volatility of their proposed purchase, Google’s bid was not filed with the SEC, but rather with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Crosses – or as it more commonly appears in writing: The Bureau of AT&✝. In their bid, Google pledges to create a welcoming, spiritual resort that honors all paths and not just the ones that hold rummage sales in church basements. A place where worshipers feel they’re on vacation instead of on trial. No longer will adherents have to nourish their souls on the stale, old piety of centuries old dogma. The Church, reborn under a new rubric, will become a divine haven where spiritual gamers (Google’s nomenclature for parishioners) can now operate in a cosmic resort of first resort. Read the rest of this entry »

1. 

   Half-baked ice cream meets my half-baked idea for a divinely inspired, holier-than-heck, frozen dessert. 

   Amish Barn Raisin’ – A very sober version of Rum Raisin

2. Quakers ‘n Cream – Vastly superior to Quakers ‘n Oats
3. Chunky Catholic – Ben & Jerry say they conceived of this ice cream immaculately. It’s filled with chunks of guilt, ribbons of redemption and dollops of dogma. Made from the milk of baptized cows, this ice cream is so decadent that eating it is actually a confessable sin: “Bless me father for I have licked.” 
4. Episcopal Popsicles – A tasty treat for the Frozen Chosen
5. The Nifty Swifties – No one can resist our new Overlord. She comes plain or dipped in sequins.
6. Televangelist Dough – Oh they’re rollin’ in it.
7. Pralines ‘n Puritans – You can tell which are which by licking them
8. Amish Garcia – Get your pious Grateful Dead fix satisfied with a sober scoop of this clear-eyed version of Cherry Garcia
9. Pentecostal Pecan – So good you won’t bother speaking in tongues; you’ll start licking in them
10. Rosicrucian Crunch – Mostly Boneless Ice Cream. An acquired taste. Like most religions, it’s usually acquired from your parents.
11. Rocky Road to Heaven – ♫You’re going to find your way to heaven is a rough and rocky road, if you don’t stop and smell the Rose-icrucians along the way♫
12. Heathen Heath Bar Toffee – Popular with Atheists. It’s topped with a blast of blaspheme and tastes positively sacrilicious.
13. Amish Cheesecake – I never thought the two could mix (the austere and the temptress). Comes with a racy Amish calendar in which some of the women appear bonnetless.
14. Russian Orthodox ‘n Hydrox – A smash up of the Eastern Coptic Church and proto-Oreos. A precursor to Oreos ‘n Cream. Not advised for those who are Putin-intolerant
15. Branch Davidian w/Cashews, Walnuts, Pecans etc. – As you might expect this Branch Davidian sect is absolutely filled with all kinds of nuts
16. I Can’t Believe It’s Not Ice Cream – A frozen confection for disbelieving atheists
17. Double Dutch Reformed Church – This tasty little number is served in a little wooden shoe
18. Blended Mormon Clusters – Somehow manages to marry several individual flavors into one big happy family
19. Creaminess Is Next to Godliness – A heavenly ice cream from God’s lips to your cone
20. Hedonism – When the only thing you can’t resist is temptation.
21. Romulus and Remus Ripple – Rome’s founders will melt your heart and all over your hand if you don’t slurp them up lickety-split.

 

The following flavors are in the planning stages:

1. Jehovah’s Witness Protection Program
2. Jehovah’s Goiter
3. Jehovah Falls Down Goes Plop
4. Seventh Day Adventist
5. Third Trimester Adventist
6. Second Semester Dentist
7. Note: Sneaking this in to see who my friends really are, if you would please post on my wall a jpg of a whale with the comment, “I think Cephalopods have a swell head,” then (and only then) can we remain friends.
8. Shakers-n-Quakers-n-Bears, Oh My!
9. The Mostly Reformed Church of Generally Unrepentant Moravians…and the women who love them.
10. OMGs – filled with Emojis and acronyms
11. Vanilla Sex – Try it. A classic. It’s made with Love 

Alright, 21 full-fledged flavors and 10 flavors in the formulation stage is probably enough ice cream for one sitting. If you can find more flavors, that will be a scoop.

Mrs. Hattie Beasley of Ipswich expected nothing more than a serviceable Queen Anne picture frame when she paid a bargain 3 quid 10 bob for it at the estate sale of dearly departed Gwendolyn Chatham in 1992. She planned on removing the existing picture of 4 English Bulldogs playing poker and replacing it with one of her own – a little hand-painted still life of apples for which she was renown in Suffolk County. In fact for about the price of a pint of mead, the purchase yielded Mrs. Beasley much more than she bargained for. Because when she removed the frame’s backer and withdrew the folded spacing materials that helped to press the English Bulldog print flush against the glass, she discovered a trove of remarkably well-preserved papers from Trinity College in Cambridge dating from 1661. Amazingly the authenticated papers were written in the strong, clear hand of Sir Isaac Newton, who, at the time they were written, was known as Isaac the Underachiever. As she examined the clean and unspoiled historic sheets, she noted they were from some kind of examination paper whose subject was titled: Catholic Church History: On Tracing Its Origin, Development and Cultural Semiotics with Respect to its Hierarchy, Heresies and Celibacy – All within an Aristotelian Construct. Read the rest of this entry »