Why is church so serious?

http://alcuinbramerton.blogspot.com/2005/01/why-is-church-so-serious.html 
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Picture: Why is church so serious? Cardinal's hat. Twelfth century CE.


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The raw materials 
Of risibility are there.
 
Middle England
In sensible brogues 
Arranging flowers by the pulpit.
 
Bearded priests in pretty dresses.
Prayers for the dead.

Why is church so serious?
Is it because God likes a good laugh?
The best churches
Contain no fewer
Than 0.00037 grams of divine truth 
Per plastic smile.

Holy Trinity Brompton has 0.00038
Spiritual excellence must be broadcast.

Why is church so serious?

Is it because 
Of the hole in the ozone layer?
Church roofs are expensive.
And Jumble Sales
Lack liturgical focus.

And confession
Is heard in coffee shops.

Why is church so serious?

Is it because
A small proportion of some sermons
Is partially true?

Is it because
A large proportion of all sermons
Is never heard?

Empty pews have no ears.
And ears have legs.

But the Bible is a good read
If you can't get Babes Mag.

Why is church so serious?

Picture: Why is church so serious? Laughing statue.

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Images for meditation

>> Go ye into all the world

>> First communion
 
>> Last communion
 
>> Healing the sick
 
>> Preaching the gospel
 
>> Feeding the widows and orphans
 
>> Clothing the widows and orphans

>> Welcoming strangers

>> Cleansing the Temple
 
>> In the world but not of it

>> The great unchurched

>> Enforcing liturgical discipline

>> Embracing interfaith dialogue

>> Remembering the Old Religion

>> Affirming the divine feminine
 
>> Denying the holocaust

>> Father Green awaits the new altar boy

>> Priestly vocation
 
>> Catechist at work

>> Opus Dei arrive for Mass

>> Sufi Master with disciples

Picture: Why is church so serious? Joking popes.

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Churchianity's take on Christianity
A promotional flyer

The theory of substitutionary atonement
An image of salvific fantasy

The Criminal History of The Papacy 1 .. 2 .. 3 
The endemic corruption which has blighted Roman Churchianity for over ten centuries. Tony Bushby writes in Nexus Magazine (2006). These three links connect to pdf files.

Dershowitz silent on absence of Holocaust proof
Alan Dershowitz, the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard University, has been challenged to provide proof that the popular Zionist narrative about Auschwitz is something other than an expedient fantasy.
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Picture: What caused the death of religion?

Picture: Perhaps pleasure is holiness
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The Theologians' Brains Trust

Sermon abuse

Men make such hopeless priests

Man-machine

Heretic unfrocked

Female bishops

General Synod agenda

These days the church

Preconceived idea

Pope terror talks

Repent, the Kingdom of God is at hand!

Lent in the open ocean

Christmas metanarrative

Christmas in Keswick

Traditional school carol service

Convent girl

Maybe try Romanism?

The feast of Corpus Christi

Nothing passes

The libraries do not fool us

The mean streets

Fundamentalists' Fellowship

Fundamentalists' Bring-and-Buy

Fundamentalism is a closed room

Is God an idealist?

What caused the death of religion?

Greenbelt - the view from the Death Star

An emerging spirituality for The New Age of Aquarius

Picture: Why is church so serious? Cheery vicar.

Index of blog contents

Picture: Vicar with dog collar. You sound so sexy when you speak in French.

Traditional school carol service

Things got off to a bad start
During the procession
Down the nave isle
Of the old medieval church.

The Head Teacher
Dropped dead.

Because he was dressed
As Father Christmas,
And had a pair of plastic
Reindeer horns
Sellotaped to his zimmer frame,
Everyone thought
He was messing about.

But it was a real
And gigantic
Heart attack,
Brought on
By the intolerable stress
Of the previous night's
Governors' meeting
And the challenging fit
Of his bright red trousers.

The Vicar,
Fully vested
As the Sugarplum Fairy
(He was an Anglo-Catholic),
Surveyed the untimely sacrifice
And insisted
That the show should go on:
That is what Jesus would have wanted.

So the rapidly cooling body
Of the Head Teacher
Was discreetly removed
To a chest deepfreeze
In the vestry,
And the procession continued.

What happened next
Was harder to explain.

The vicar was turned into stone.

This was achieved
By a petrifying force
Of considerable potency
Emanating from the direction
Of the Lady Chapel.

When an Anglo-Catholic vicar,
Dressed as the Sugarplum Fairy,
Is turned into stone,
In the middle of a procession
Down the nave isle
Of a Christmas carol service church
With a packed congregation,
And the organ roaring,
The effect is not inconsiderable.

As in life, so in death:
He could not be shifted.

Elephant chains were procured,
Royal Engineers' lifting gear
Was deployed,
But the stone statue
Of the vicar
Was unmoved and unmoving.

So the procession
Had to squeeze past him
As if nothing
Had happened.

You can still see
The stone statue there today.

Sir Nikolas Pevsner
Describes it as
An eccentric piece,
Well-executed in the
Arts-and-Crafts fashion,
Displaying
Skilfully rendered drapery,
But unfortunately located.

The procession reached the sanctuary
Without further difficulty,
Except that one of Hannibal's elephants
Was sick on the communion rail
And his trunk fell off.

Worse things happened
During the Second Punic War.

The church now
Subsided into respectful silence
For the solo singing
Of the first verse of
Once in Royal David's City.

The familiar words
Piped out into
The candlelit church:

Once in royal David's city
Stood a lowly cattle shed,
Where a mother laid her baby
In an egg box, not a bed:
Mary was that mother mild,
Donald Duck her little child.


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Christmas in Keswick

Christmas metanarrative

More Norfolk koans

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

Yoda wisdom for Gungan groupies

http://alcuinbramerton.blogspot.com/2006/12/yoda-wisdom-for-gungan-groupies.html
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Compiled by Alcuin Bramerton
from privileged sources in the Outer Rim


Page update: 01.06.10 Planet Earth western hemisphere linear time

***

Yoda senses a disturbance
in The Force.
On Planet Earth
another animal
has been needlessly
butchered
for human food.

***

Yoda has taught
many young Jedis
in his time,
but he knows that
teaching is not something
you do to pupils;
teaching is something you are.

***

Yoda is aware that
7.6 million British women
own more than sixteen
pairs of shoes each,
yet still The Force remains strong
within him.

***
Yoda thinks that astrology
will be better understood
on Planet Earth
when human science becomes
a little more mature.

***

Yoda trusts his own anger;
he has a second cup of tea
with Saruman the White.

***

Gungans are not
intellectuals.
Yoda knows this
but stays positive.

***

On Christmas Eve,
when Yoda encounters
a fresh slice of
hot buttered toast,
his light sabre glows blue.
But he does not eat it.
Even a Jedi Master
cannot easily digest
a light sabre.

***

In The Adam and Eve pub,
in Bishopgate, Norwich (UK),
Yoda, Albus Dumbledore
and Gandalf the Grey
occasionally enjoy a game
of three-sided chess.
But they take care
to leave the pawns untouched.
***

The thing about Yoda
is that
Yoda doesn't blog.

***

Yoda doesn't eat chocolate;
he wills the chocolate
to be eaten by others.

***

Yoda understands himself;
he knows about
the internal architecture
of being.

***

Yoda is everywhere;
he is everywhere
all at once,
except you don't notice.

***

Think quantum transdimensionality
and you think Yoda.
But you don't touch Yoda
with your thought;
Yoda touches you with his.

***

Yoda's ears are chimerical;
they look as if
they're listening.
But actually
his ears
are looking.
They are looking elsewhere.


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Images of Yoda1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Images of hot buttered toast
1 2 3 4 5


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Out beyond the Gas Giants

More Norfolk koans

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Christmas in Keswick

http://alcuinbramerton.blogspot.com/2005/12/christmas-in-keswick.html
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It is Christmas Day
In Keswick.

Turkeys skip happily
Over the high fells
Above Mosedale.

Plum puddings
Decorate
The north face
Of Skiddaw.

And piping hot
Mince pies
Are arranged in wavy lines
Across the A66
At Great Crosthwaite.

The parish church
Of St John Evangelist
Is full
With festive worshippers
Exchanging
Help the Aged
Christmas cards
And sipping rum punch
Under the west tower.

High in the sky overhead
A fierce, rumbling,
Hissing sound
Is heard.

Suddenly,
A huge asteroid measuring
760 metres long
By 435 metres wide
Crashes through the roof
Of the church.

But because the asteroid
Is two-dimensional,
Little lasting damage is done,
Except to the liturgy
Of the Church of England.

The advent candle
Continues
To burn brightly,
As it did throughout
The Second World War.

Christmas lunch
Proceeds
On time.

At Swinside Cottage,
The Christmas crackers
Are enjoyed
Between the main course
And the dessert wine.

At Portinscale Terrace
The Braithwaites
And the Millbeck girls
Will be coming round
To sing carols
Before tea.

And later this evening
In Derwent Walk,
There will be
Buttered toast,
Roasted chestnuts
And Christmas pudding ice-cream.



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Traditional school carol service

Christmas metanarrative

High fells

More Norfolk koans

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

Christmas metanarrative

Christmas is
The time each year
When Santa slips deftly
Down your chimney
And brings you a copy
Of the Holy Qur'an.

Christmas is
The annual festival
Designed by women
To celebrate the unnecessary pressure
They put on themselves
For about two months every year,
And to complain about it
To any man who will listen.

Christmas is
That happy festive time
When men cast away their cares
About cirrhosis of the liver,
And beer bellies
And indulge in a spot
Of chronic, well-lubricated
Male bonding.

Christmas is
When you go to a school nativity play
And discover
That the birth of Christ
Was attended by
A Barbie doll,
Several dolphins,
And thirty four
Illegal immigrants
In dirty-films raincoats.

Christmas is
When you spend hours
Getting your son's
New train set
Working perfectly,
Only to see him
Smash it up
In exasperation.

Christmas is
When you make the mistake
Of asking your wife
For sex
Under the Christmas tree
Before the presents have been
Unwrapped.



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Christmas in Keswick

Traditional school carol service

Olive restaurant in Bromley

More Norfolk koans

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching