I was watching Bishop T.D. Jakes last night on Daystar. He's a black evangelical minister and his audience is mostly black although I saw some whites. Suffice to say he's extremely passionate in his preaching and his listeners really get into it as well. All in all a very passionate evening. Compare this with your typical white average Catholics who go to Mass every weekend and who barely know the readings in the OT & NT. You might catch some rolling their eyes at a long homily and then somebody else has to crane their neck to see who just arrived in the back of the church. Then some old guy's cane falls and everyone looks around for five minutes. Some be leaving around Communion time, someplace to go I guess. You never see anyone leaving during a Jake's sermon though. Pull up a chair we're just getting warmed up. The faith of African-Americans puts us Catholics to shame!
Golly...don't put that in the Pope's suggestion box!
ReplyDeleteI like the end of the pew in the back. If you arrive ten minutes late for the Mass please don't tap me on the shoulder and ask me to move in.
ReplyDeleteAs a kid, I found church services generally tedious. But once in awhile things would liven up. The 8AM communion was short and you had almost the whole Sunday left, so that was a favorite for awhile. My friend Rhody and I were in the sparsely populated nave. Rhody had the habit of chewing on things and somehow swallowed a safety pin. "Geez, Rhody, was it open? "Yeah, I'm gonna die!" That sort of added
ReplyDeletegravitas to the Nicene Creed and I scanned the congregants. There was old Dr. Aiken as usual, sitting way over under the stained glass window of St. Bartholomew.
She was sort of mysterious, but I knew she was a doctor, so while Rhody went ahead with his dying, I sauntered as unobtrusively as I could across the Cathedral.
She was startled when I tapped her on the shoulder, but listened to our problem.
Then announced that she was a psychiatrist. The short service was still in process
as we escorted the stricken Rhody out the side door in the Commons Hall. He was pale as death, but Dr. Aikens said he seemed OK, at least psychologically. She called his folks, who came shortly and took him to ER. Rhody showed up fine at the next early service, the open safety pin having successfully passed the alimentary
canal with some help from stuff the med staff gave him that he observed looked and tasted like dogfood. -halleluja
Fun at church, Chapter II-
ReplyDeleteEpiscopalians of that era were big on Wednesday night services during Lent, as were my parents. I found them mostly boring other than some of the nice Anglican
Eventide hymns. Especially boring was the Cathedral habit of bringing in illustrious
speakers from around the country to give hour long sermons relating to Lent. One
Wednesday night we had some old seminary professor, famed in his profession and having advanced degrees in almost every theological branch. Real old. Looked a lot
like Bernie Sanders at 100; big plume of white hair. The pulpit was an imported oak
affair from Britain elevated at the front of the church and up a few steps from the chancel. Our family always sat near the front beneath the towering pulpit to better
take in the sermon (or in my case stay awake by thinking of that new girl across the aisle in geometry class). The preacher grabbed the lectern, mutli colored robes flying and white head bobbing and proceeded to boom out about Lent, major saints,
the intricacies of proper theology and stuff that paled compared to the girl in geometry. The ending was glorious: he closed his notes, shouted 'Amen!', made
a dignified about face and fell down the pulpit steps. A regular tumbling picture of
white hair, feet and rotating multi colored chasuble and hundreds of hand written
notes. I stifled a horse laugh, but the snot ran down my nose. One of those sermons you never forget, except what was said, ya know?
The Vatican exorcists are going after Halloween trick-or-treaters, opens up the door to Satan. While Satan is busy in the Middle East and elsewhere he's gonna take time to bother a bunch of kids?
ReplyDeleteSome denominations seem a bit over strict . Presumably bible-based, but still....
ReplyDeleteWhile we are on old time religion, the Catholic Church seems to renewed its interest in the click here . At least to the extent that they are
ReplyDeleteoffering a new revision of the Bible by that name . Perhaps as a gift to a family member...instead of watching 'Christmas Story' reruns, y'all could sit around sipping brandy and eggnog
and discussing pre-Jerome, pre-Aquinas first century Christian thinking. (Or Christmas Story...it works for me. :)
Hmm, misdirected link. Don't click there, click here
ReplyDeleteI'm currently reading actress Leah Remini's book about life with the sci-fis. Pretty much born into it so kind of an expert. Have you committed any overts (transgressions) today?
ReplyDeleteWhy Jeb Bush is going nowhere. His latest position is if he could go back in time he'd kill Baby Hitler. How come Rod Serling never thought of this?
ReplyDeletePresumably as a pro-life stalwart Jeb would also be for aborting the Hitler Fetus. At least he should have the Trekkie vote all locked up.
ReplyDeleteMy guess; Jeb is not GOP enough for the GOP base. Then again, maybe its the Bush Three Strike Rule?
DeleteMaybe he's just boring.
DeleteT.D. Jakes must be good. The Donald Trump of evangelism-
ReplyDelete"T.D. Jakes
Net worth: $18 million. Average annual income in his community: $56,954.
T.D. Jakes earned his wealth as chief pastor of The Potter’s House, a non-denominational megachurch in Dallas with 30,000 members. The Trinity Broadcasting Network and Black Entertainment Television both air his services and evangelistic sermons. He’s also a New York Times bestselling author."
-I hope you didn't use his tithe app-
When there's nothing else on tv which is many nights it's an easy choice. "Antiques Roadshow" or T.D. Jakes, I'm going with the Bishop.
DeleteMy go-to fallback is usually PBS. Watched a thing on Iwo Jima last night.
DeleteOne of the ancient US vets couldn't shake his hatred of all things Japanese. Then his son married one, the daughter of a kamikaze pilot and he now has a flock of Japanese-American grand children and is gradually coming around.
"Globetrekker" for me.
ReplyDeleteOur cable company did another one of their 'improvements'. They provided a sheet of the old channel numbers and their new numbers. I may expire before I memorize this bunch.
ReplyDeleteSome country's presidential debates are as interesting as ours.
ReplyDelete"Argentina’s two remaining candidates for president are set to debate on Sunday, and the question “Does too much sex lead to malnourished kids?” may have just made it onto the docket."
I ordered a couple of n scale locomotives from one of your neighbors; a place called
ReplyDelete'Trainworld'. Explored the locale with google maps. It is in Brooklyn, corner of Ditmus and McDonald, apparently an eclectic area with Jewish centers and museums. some east Asian places and just up the street from a place called 'Magnetic Panties'. Ever been to Trainworld?