Court Prophets Revel in Their "Unprecedented" Royal Access

JERUSALEM (ARNS*) -- Squeezed in among two dozen other prophets in residence at the royal court, Hananiah added his hand to the other reaching to pray for King Zedekiah of Judah.

The royal prayer session is just one example of the access the court of Zedekiah and his key aides have given to a cadre of prophets, from evening-long dinners to all day meetings.

"This is unlike anything we've experienced in our career in prophecy -- unprecedented access, unprecedented solicitation of viewpoints and opinions," said Hananiah.

Previous kings had granted access to prophets across the spectrum, although not always positively -- the death of the prophet Uriah son of Shemaiah at the hands of King Jehoiakim comes to mind -- but Zedekiah's court has been particularly given over to those prophets of the party of Hananiah.

Observers suggest that the cadre of court prophets gives Zedekiah a "seal of approval" among an important constituency in Judah, a significant support for a king whose situation is shaky at best. The court prophets also offer Zedekiah protection against non-conformist prophets such as Jeremiah, an agitating presence across multiple royal courts. Hananiah's spectacular attack against Jeremiah, in which he took the prophet's wooden yoke and broke it in front of the king, was reported to have been received with great favor by Zedekiah and Hananiah's fellow court prophets.

"I'm sure that the king would be happy if Jeremiah had been elimiated with Uriah years ago, although fortunately that didn't happen somehow thanks to the protection of Ahikam son of Shaphan. But to be able to put that pest in his place shows just how much the king values our prophetic utterances in support of the kingdom and of the king," Hananiah is reported to have said. "We do the job of supporting the king when fake prophets like Jeremiah won't, and the king favors us accordingly. It's the best situation we've ever known."

Clearly Zedekiah enjoys the support of the so-called court prophets; after the latest such meeting he referred to the court prophets as "my kind of people," and he was reported to have laughed uproariously at Hananiah's breaking of Jeremiah's yoke.

While prophets such as Jeremiah have not gone away, their number is far fewer and their safety is not guaranteed. Hananiah's star rose with his prophecy of the end of Babylon's power and the return of exiled people and stolen artifacts, against which Jeremiah had spoken (leading to the yoke-breaking incident). The direct attack of one prophet against another is seen as a sign of just how much favor the court party of prophets has with the relatively new king.

Jeremiah, the non-court prophet, responded to a request for comment for this story with a lengthy prophetic statement about wooden and iron yokes. Hananiah the unofficial leader of the court prophet party, was also asked for further comment but was unable to reply due to illness.

An artist's depiction of the incident in which Hananiah broke Jeremiah's yoke (video cameras were not allowed at the session).

Note: the original article being parodied is here; a quick browse of Jeremiah 26-28 is also recommended.

*ARNS = Ancient Religion News Service

(If you still need a mainline "moral of the story" at this point...don't be like Hananiah. Even Billy Graham came to regret how much he let Richard Nixon use him.)

The (Clergy-Search) Dating Game

In case I haven't made this clear, I did actually graduate!  That particular part of the fool's errand that gives this blog its name is done.
Of course, that means that the challenging part -- the "becoming a Presbyterian pastor" part -- is where I am now.  And that means it's time for me to play The Presbyterian Dating Game.
Different denominations have different means of pastors being placed in churches.  On one end of the spectrum is the free-for-all involved in Baptist and other such denominations.  On the other, the strict placement practice of United Methodists, in which not only are you placed by a bishop, but you are subject to being re-placed four or five years later.
As is typical in just about everything polity-wise, the Presbyterian Church (USA) sits somewhere in the middle, with a system that leaves the choice up to church and potential pastor while centralizing the contact process in Presbyterian offices in Louisville (henceforth called the Mothership).  Without betraying confidence or otherwise giving away state secrets, here's a little of what it's like to be caught up in this process.
Once one has been certified by one's presbytery as ready for examination for a call, the potential pastor is called upon to summarize his/her life in a few pages via the Personal Information Form (PIF).  The PIF is, without too much exaggeration, your life essence, your core, your Patronus, your very being itself all digested and wrestled into electronic written form.  Beyond the practical details of your life history and education and experience the PIF also captures your response to a set of narrative questions that are intended to say something about you as a potential minister (or experienced minister if you're that).  It also includes references, like a more traditional resumé, and your contact information of course.  Completing this PIF becomes the Holy Grail of your existence once you're certified, even to the point of becoming a bigger deal than graduation (I got this wrong, therefore I'm a little behind many of my classmates who are already toddling off to their first calls).
Of course the seminary has an office to help with this kind of thing, but ultimately you've got to get it done and filled out on a PC(USA) website so it can be approved by your presbytery's appropriate committee, after which it is posted on the denomination's Christian Leadership Connection list of pastors and others seeking new calls.  Hundreds upon hundreds of PIFs are lodged there.
At the same time, the CLC is also gathering MIFs, or Ministry Information Forms, from churches seeking new pastors or associate pastors or whatever may be the case.  (In case you didn't guess it from the PC(USA) abbreviation, we Presbyterians love love love us some acronyms.)  Once your PIF is posted, it's time to start looking for matches, with the CLC functioning somewhat like the dating site eHarmony.  Your seminary's vocational office can help you out by finding those churches that match your criteria (i.e. are willing to take on someone with no pastoral experience or seeking a first call, in my case) and, possibly, going ahead and referring your PIF to the churches that match.  You can also refer yourself via good ol' email, though it doesn't hurt to have your seminary vouching for you, so to speak.
Then, you wait.  This is the part at which I am not good.
If things go well, churches start to contact you via the chair of their Pastor Nominating Committee (or PNC).  Often the first contact might simply be a query as to whether you're still interested in that church, or it might be a request to see a video of you preaching a sermon, particularly if you're seeking a solo or head pastor role.
I assume all the seminaries have some means of helping you get such a video done; Union does, and so I was off to preach a sermon to a video camera.  Such is the essence of strangeness.  In this case the video is hosted by UPSem's media services, so the PNC can simply go online and watch the sermon to see if you're a total incompetent or not.  If after this the church decides you're still a person of interest, the next step might be to set up an interview with you and the committee via Skype or old-fashioned conference call.  This is as far as I've gotten; I've now completed such interviews with two churches, the second just earlier this evening.
There is one other potential step, if you choose.  This year PC(USA) offered a face-to-face interview opportunity running concurrently with its General Assembly a couple of weeks ago in Detroit, on the premise that elders or nominating committee members or presbytery executives were likely to be on the premises and could sneak out of meetings on occasion to interview either newbies like me or, in some cases, currently employed pastors who were seeking new calls.  It is the latter that causes the face-to-face interview room to be placed in the most remote part of the meeting facility, I assume (seriously, the interview room was practically in Canada).

See? There's Windsor, Ontario, seen from just outside the interview room!

If the CLC website is eHarmony, this face-to-face is a speed-dating event.  I barely got into the interview room before I had two different potential interview groups coming after me.  The whole week wasn't quite that hectic, but I did stay busy, which I take as a good thing (one of the two interviews I've done resulted directly from this face-to-face program, so I am required to go on the record saying it's worth doing).  Still, it was odd being right there as all the difficult and controversial overtures before the GA were being discussed and debated and knowing less than the average person sitting at home following on Twitter.
Anyway, that's as much as I can say because that's as far as I've gone.  There may be more churches yet to contact me for sermons or interviews, or something more might happen with one of the interview churches, or the whole business could suddenly freeze up and leave me stranded.  I have some self-referrals I need to do, and I need to go back to the CLC to see if there are any new churches that match up with me.
And that, in a really long and winding nutshell, is my life.

The trouble with Baby Jesus

I got provoked today.  It was probably inevitable after a couple of travel days for two different required meetings, with the inevitable fatigue that was to follow.  Anyway, the provocation can be found within this column, which also provides an appropriately tart response.  (You should go look at it now, or else this post won't make any sense, since I aim to keep it short and go to bed.  I'll be here when you get back, I promise.)

As if somehow Jesus needs our protection.  Sheesh.

I get baffled at this.  Exactly how is it that Christ is damaged if someone fails to say "Merry Christmas" at that time of year, or if a contest devoted to repeated acts of violence and mental maiming, i.e. a football game, is not inaugurated with a prayer?  Do you really think even the most virulent Christ-hater one could imagine could do anything more harmful than pee his or her pants if confronted with Christ In All His Glory?

And if this is all a cover for a few self-described Christians of a particular stripe to nurse grudges over their own hurt feelings, I am not sure a charge of blasphemy is not warranted against them.

I'm beginning to wonder if the problem is one of exactly which Christ is being "worshipped" in these cases.

There are some strains of the church where only a few images or portrayals of Christ are really in play in that tradition at any given time.  Let's face it, we're never going to comprehend Christ In All His Mystery at any point this side of the bar, but sometimes churches or denominations or particular traditions embrace an even more limited array of options for acknowledging who Jesus was and is.  The butt-kicking warrior-ish Second Coming Christ gets a lot of play in some traditions, for example.  The Gloriously Risen Christ is always good around Easter.  The Crucified Christ...well, the God-talk is always good for a few "Christ died for your sins" iterations, but sometimes one gets the impression that some segments of the church are kind of ashamed of the Savior on the Cross.  (Or maybe it's just that the megachurches get so backed up at Easter that they're already having Easter services on Good Friday.)

And of course Baby Jesus rules from sometime in November through December 25 or so.

And I wonder if the problem is that in many cases, Baby Jesus is never allowed to grow up.

Think about it.  Favorite Christmas carols tend to be full of images of the child, images of a particularly romanticized sort.  I've sort of mocked the "Away in a manger" line in which "Little lord Jesus, no crying he makes" before.  The child is sleeping, the child is sweet, the child is tender, the child is gentle, so on and so on.  (Martin Luther tried to do better in the chorale Von Himmel Hoch, but how often do you sing that around Christmas?  Put your hands down, Lutherans.)  We spend a good solid month or more drilling that image into our heads.  OF COURSE it's going to linger subconsciously in our minds. That little baby boy needs our protection!!!

OK, maybe that cheap bit of psychoanalysis was over the top.  But I do suspect that a large swath of the Christian population is not really progressed beyond Baby Jesus in their conception of the Savior Of All Humanity.  It's not hard to see that many are distinctly uncomfortable with The Jesus Between Manger and Cross.  You know, the one who hung out with smelly poor people and degenerate tax collectors and ne'er-do-well fishermen, the one who touched sick people, the one who gave away food to crowds that probably didn't deserve it...or even the one who said really uncomfortable things like "love your enemies, bless those that curse you..." or "the gate is wide, that leads to eternal destruction, and many are they that find it," or other such unpleasant thoughts.

And, to flog another horse that I've flogged before, a properly observed Advent would go a long way towards correcting this seeming hangup in corners of the modern church.  Four weeks of prophets and pictures of what God's world really ought to look like might just help avert some of that infantilization of Jesus that seems to linger in some minds.  But of course, for so many churches, Advent is a one-week lip-service thing before we're off on that round of sentimentalized Christmas carols for the whole month of December, and as any musician can tell you, folks are going to remember the hymns a lot more than they remember even your best sermons.

So here we sit, in a country where a substantial chunk of those who are loudest about calling themselves Christians are somehow convinced that either Jesus will be destroyed if people don't say "Merry Christmas" x  number of times between Thanksgiving and Christmas, or that their wounded pride and their shame at no longer dominating the culture is an excuse to engage in political manipulation and exploitation of Christ to score cheap points on their enemies, which I'm pretty sure is blasphemy.  And more people end up hungry and homeless in the bargain, and this gets called God's work.  And Jesus, the Jesus Who Is All Of Those Things And A Whole Lot More, weeps.

Why we hate Advent (or should), part 4: It's all been done

So you're back after all.

Yep.

And you still have your colon and most of your rectum too.  

Yep.

You must be feeling very smug now.

I'm feeling very fortunate and very blessed.

And you're not even hurting that much, apparently.  You think you're some kind of superman?

No, I'm not really hurting, but every now and then my body rushes me to the john to remind me I'm no superman.  I'd assumed you'd enjoy that part, personal mental demon.

And for all that, you're going to flog this Advent horse yet again?

One more time.



"Pastor, could I talk to you for just a moment?

"Oh, the others aren't here.  They took off to go see grandkids for Christmas.  My kids and grandkids will be coming here later today.  Anyway, I'm sure the others are still as cranky as ever, or probably gloating about being at a church today that isn't bothering with Advent.

"But maybe, I don't know, maybe there really is a point to this?

"All week my mind has been troubled by that awful thing that happened in Connecticut.  I feel broken. I don't know whether to be sad or angry.  And to hear how some people don't seem to care, only that they get to keep their guns...I wanted to crawl into a hole and die.  What kind of world is this?  Is this our world?

"It was kind of a shock to come in and find the church dark this morning.  I also saw you get a little testy with one of the elders who kept trying to turn on the lights.  But it fit where I was, that was for sure.  Gray and gloomy.

"It's not as if the Advent wreath hasn't been getting lit for three weeks already.  But somehow today it made so much sense all of a sudden.  Of course we have to light candles.  This is a dark world.  We have to light candles because this is a dark world.  We can curse the darkness all we want to, but that doesn't bring any light to the world.

"So, I guess the question is, what does it mean to bring light to this world?  What are we supposed to be doing to illuminate in this darkness?  I guess I've never thought about it this way before.  And maybe I'm seeing this now because we kept plugging at Advent, I don't know.  I'll have to think about this.

"But another thing, the Magnificat.  I know it gets preached every year, and the choir sang a lovely setting too.  But until you mentioned it in the sermon, I'd never noticed how it's all in the past.  It's all action that has been done.  "He has scattered the proud...," "he has filled the hungry...," all what we would call present perfect tense, pastor.  After all these weeks it finally sunk in, if we're not living in a way that our world and our actions look like this, then we're not living in God's world, are we?  And that's why we have to keep lighting candles, to be against the darkness.  It isn't just that a world where things like Sandy Hook happens isn't the world that God has done.  It's that a world where things like Sandy Hook are accepted, where we just say "that's how it is," or where we despair and say there's nothing we can do about it...that isn't the world God has done either.

"It's amazing to me how it's suddenly all fitting together.  All those Old Testament readings and all that from John the Baptist.  This is what it points to, isn't it?  It all comes together.

"It's a lot to think about.  Now I almost wish I had a few days before Christmas to think about it.  I still feel broken and angry and sad, but I guess I can at least see something about what it means to live in the  world God has done, and to light lights against the darkness.  I won't say I completely understand it yet, but there's something there.

"Thanks, pastor.  See you tomorrow night."



As if.

Eh, a pastor can dream.

You think anyone will ever really get it?

I don't know.  All I can do is proclaim.  No pastor has any control over how any parishioner receives what the pastor preaches.  And frankly, a pastor who tries to have that kind of control is an evil thing.

You're pointless.  But at least this Advent foolishness from you is done.  And you can knock it off with a nice little Christmas story and get back to your usual irrelevance, instead of this extra-special irrelevance.

One little Christmas story?  You know that the Christmas season really lasts twelve days, don't you?  Maybe I'll get crazy and blog the twelve days of Christmas somehow.  Hmm...

You have got to be kidding me.  You can't seriously think that even the most benighted Advent geek is going to take a whole twelve days of celebrating Christmas lying down, can you?  You really are a fool.

Yep, it's right there in the name of the blog.

You are utterly pointless.

Yeah, whatever.

Why we hate Advent (or should), part 2: You can't Handel the truth

So you're back.

Yeah, I'm back.  It's my blog, after all.

You must be feeling pretty good about yourself.  All the traffic on those two blogs you wrote last week, people sharing that damfool Advent travesty you wrote...

Actually, it was a little terrifying.  And besides, that kind of traffic is hardly a drop in the bucket for a real blogger.  If you want to go pick on a blogger with major traffic, go bother Adam Copeland or Rachel Evans.

Fat chance.  I'm your personal mental demon.  You don't get to farm me out.

OK, fine.  Meanwhile, I'm going to try to write this entry before time for bed.  

You know you'll never live up to that again.  Especially not after you get mutilated this Friday.

Thanks for the reminder.  Anyway, I know I'll never live up to that, but I don't care.  Anyway, you might actually enjoy this one.

Oh, you think so?  Why?

Remember the snippy hypothetical average churchgoers from last week?

Yes, what about them?

I'm going to take their advice.



"OK, preacher, now you've gone and done it.  What, you didn't think we were paying attention?  Maybe you thought you would sneak one by us, but we're not that dumb.  You say you're taking our advice and filling the service with nothing but music, but this is just your passive-aggressive way of preaching another Advent sermon without actually preaching.

"Shame on you using the children to try to sneak this Advent foolishness by us.  You put the children up front to sing, so all the parents and grandparents and the whole family will be there to hear them.  And what are they singing?  'Silent night'?  'Away in a manger'?  Noooo, you're trying to sneak some Advent hymn by everybody.  What is this "prepare the way" business?  More Advent.  Weren't you listening last week?  This is downright devious of you.  Put those poor little children up there in front of the congregation to spread this Advent foolishness?  How could you?

"As if using the children wasn't bad enough, you hornswoggled the youth too.  We thought we could count on them to be cynical and suspicious, but you conned them with this Godspell foolishness.  Sheesh, that show is old.  Who knew the music was by the same guy who wrote the music for Wicked? That's just dirty pool, pastor.  So you used the children and conned the youth into your little Advent conspiracy, all this 'prepare the way' talk.  And we still haven't heard 'Hark, the Herald Angels Sing' even once yet.  You're ruining our Christmas, you know that?

"Oh, but then you got really dirty.  You used Messiah on us.  That is a dirty lowdown rotten thing to do.  Everybody knows that Handel's Messiah is the greatest Christmas music of all time, and you had to go turn it into part of your little Advent scheme.  Worse yet, you used Handel to slip that crazy angry guy John the Baptist in by the back door.  Just because it comes right out of today's gospel reading, you think you can use it in church to keep people thinking about this 'preparing' obsession.  And that other business from Messiah, with the bass and then the soprano?  You know you aren't really supposed to sing that part, don't you?  Maybe somebody should send you to music school, pastor.  Then that awful business about purifying.  Pastor, we're pretty sure you broke the choir.  And you slipped in that 'righteousness' talk from last week again.

"The worst part of it is, some people fell for it.  I heard people talking about that service being 'meaningful'.  Those dang youth got all excited, and the kids and their parents got all excited, and even the choir got all excited even though you broke them.  Now they're wondering what happens next, when they ought to be rushing out to get their pitchforks to gig you for all this non-Christmas.  Instead, they're going on about 'anticipation' and even thinking about how Christmas might even be more meaningful if they don't rush into it so hard.  Well, pastor, you might have fooled them, but you won't fool us.  They'll forget soon enough, and then we'll be coming for you.  You wanna anticipate something?  Prepare the way for that pastorectomy.  When you least expect it..."


Still with the satire, huh?  

Eh, it was an excuse for some good links.

And you think you can follow this up next week?

Are you kidding?  I might not even be awake by this time next week.

Yeah, and you might not have a rectum by this time next week either.  So you really think this matters at all?  What's the point?  As if you really have any hope of a pastoral calling if you get turned into a freak show this Friday?  

You know that saying about it being better to light a candle than to curse the darkness?

Yeah, what of it?

So I'm trying to light some candles.  Doesn't mean I can't scream at the darkness at the same time.

You're hopeless, you know that?

Yeah, whatever.

Why we hate Advent (or should)

What's this?  Just yesterday you were blogging about maybe taking a break because of your health issues and your anger issues with your health issues, and here you are blogging again not even twenty-four hours later?  Sheesh, hypocrite much?  

Yeah, whatever.  I reserve the right to be a hypocrite about it.  And besides, I didn't say I was going to take a hiatus for sure.  Even the last words of that entry said "I don't know."  

Still, you're being inconsistent.  

Again, whatever.  I'm writing a blog entry.  It beats doing homework.  

And now, in your angry state, you're going to try satire?  Really?  Aren't you getting to be a bit out of control?  

Well, yes.  I did promise that yesterday, after all.  

Oh, good grief, where are the blog police?




It is my experience, in my limited-but-not-that-limited time in a denomination with some aspirations to liturgy, that the whole concept of the season of Advent is (among the average churchgoer at least; many clergy devoutly wish they could do more with the season) grudgingly accepted at best.  It's o.k. or maybe tolerable at best to put up with one Sunday in which the congregation sings Advent hymns (and by "Advent hymns" I mean "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel"), but if the Christmas carols aren't in full swing by the second Sunday of December the deacons and elders and Sunday school teachers and Presbyterian Women are emerging from their dark corners, sharpened knives at the ready, all set to perform a pastorectomy and install a more compliant model that will choose nothing but Christmas carols (and none of that funny stuff, no "All my heart today rejoices" or that weird Huron thing) the moment Thanksgiving dinner is digested.

This has its, shall we say, inconsistencies.  In many cases these are the same people who complain most loudly when department stores start putting up their Christmas displays sometime around Arbor Day, and radio stations start playing Christmas music well before Thanksgiving.  (Admittedly the latter does somewhat resemble a crime against humanity, and should probably be covered under the Geneva convention.  But I digress.)  Oftimes these are the same folks as well who will be most wont to complain about the tiresomely argued "war on Christmas" that some shadowy cabal is supposedly waging on us poor persecuted American Christians.

Now another funny feature of this tendency is that, once Christmas Day (or more specifically, the Christmas Eve service) is over, that's the end of Christmas.  People who show up for church on the first Sunday after Christmas (and that is a rather slim number indeed) are often shocked to find Christmas hymns in the bulletin.  "Huh?  Christmas is over.  What's this doing here?"

For a long time I presumed that this was a simple case of the church's cultural captivity, simply having no other concept of how to spend December aside from relentlessly doing "Christmas" over and over again until December 25 itself becomes an exhausted anticlimax.  Now I'm not so sure.

I'm beginning to think people know what Advent is, and that they hate what Advent is.

There are specific reasons for this.  After all, look what Advent serves up for sermon fodder.  Today's readings from the Revised Common Lectionary offer up lessons from Jeremiah 33, 1 Thessalonians 3, and Luke 21, along with the expected psalm that nobody ever preaches on.

"1 Thessalonians 3 seems rather harmless, but Jeremiah 33 is a little scary if you look at it too closely.  It starts off fine with its talk of fulfilling promises, but it goes off the rails quickly enough when it starts to harp on words like "justice" and "righteousness."  Why, the words "righteous" or "righteousness" crop up three times in verses fifteen and sixteen alone.  And righteousness is such a tedious subject.  Everybody knows that talking about righteousness is just another excuse to accuse people of bad financial practices/sexual behavior/recreational activities/(insert pet vice here), and who wants to listen to that when there are greens to hang and manger scenes to set up?  And justice?  Now you're getting political.  Totally out of line, and we won't stand for it.  We give to those charitable things exactly so we don't have to think about this kind of business, and you're going to throw it in our faces when we should be singing "Silent Night" for the first of thirty-five times this month?  Just stop.  Quit asking us to think this time of year.

"Jeremiah 33 is bad enough, but Luke 21 is a freaking disaster area.  "Signs in the sun, moon, and stars"?? What is this, an M. Night Shyamalan movie?  You're really going to preach that text now, in twenty-first century America?  In December 2012 of all months, with that Mayan calendar foolishness in full swing?  And just a year after that Harold Camping pratfall about predicting the end of the world?  Good grief, just stop.  It's strange and confusing and you're not that good a preacher.  Yeah, yeah, it gets on to talking about "watching" and "being alert" and those are Advent words, we know, we just don't want to hear them.  The only getting ready we want to do involves spending money we don't have to buy stuff we already have perfectly good versions of.  It's only over-commercialization of Christmas when other people do it; when I do it it's "being a good parent."

"Things don't get any better the rest of Advent, sadly for you.  The second Sunday is bearable, because a couple of the texts sound like things we heard when the local orchestra did Messiah this weekend, but still, a sentence like "but who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?" isn't exactly hopeful, is it?  And the gospel just brings in that creepy John the Baptist quoting more obscure prophets.  Bleah.  There's some canticle in there, which sounds good, but now that I look at it closely it's about John the Baptist too.  You don't even get anything about Bethlehem or Mary and Joseph until two days before Christmas, just more creepy prophets going on about things I don't understand and that might make me uncomfortable, and more John the Baptist, who really seems to have anger issues.  And even two days before Christmas they insist on throwing in the Magnificat, which sounds cute but is really rather radical and political now that I read it instead of listening to somebody sing it.

"So, yeah, we've had it with this Advent thing.  We know what you preachers are up to: you're looking for an excuse to preach instead of telling cute Christmas stories and letting the little kids sing.  It might even be best if you don't preach at all in December, pastor.  Just have the church put on musical programs and cute Christmas stories from the Bible all month.  That way we can have our fun and not be threatened by all that justice and righteousness talk.  What do you think we want to do, change our ways?  No, thank you.  We'll keep Christmas nice and safe and harmless so we can go back to ignoring it and living exactly the way we want to when it's all over.

"And don't think we won't perform another pastorectomy.  We remember how, and the knives are still sharp."


Oh, good grief.  THIS is how you're blogging the first week of Advent?  Seriously, don't do satire.  And you should probably take that hiatus.

Yeah, whatever.