Happy Holidays from Matheism

There’s no greater time to show your token devotion to a higher power than Christmas. Whether it be via attending some kind of religious service during the month of December or angrily calling upon God to damn people who take your parking spot, the Lord and his or her mysterious powers of spontaneous baby-making are often invoked as the calendar creeps closer and closer to the dreaded number 25. The Methodists did NOT disappoint in providing appropriate hoopla for our viewing pleasure during the Christmas season.

Increased numbers in the fold: Not only did Voltron and I notice an uptick in warm bodies sitting in the stiff wooden pews (an extra 10 human Christians a week, I’d say, each bedecked in garish reds and reindeer patterned vests etc), but we were blessed with the brief return of a former lapsed choir member. While Uncle Fester only showed up for one day—a Sunday, I might add, which means that she inexpertly took part in the performance of an anthem that she’d never set eyes on before, no big—her ephemeral vocal presence was a thoughtful, helpful, and responsible addition to our Yuletide warbles.

Big Geezy’s Attire: Homegirl ROCKED a shiny plastic golden jacket throughout the majority of December. We were rehearsing in the sanctuary one night in preparation for our X-mas spectaculaire, and due to some really graphic plumbing issues of J. Arbuckle’s that we heard in detail but that I will not repeat here, he and Geezy were running super late. (J. Arbuckle picks her up for Wednesday night rehearsal to avoid Geezy let loose on the roads of Burlington in the pitch black.) The Oracle insisted that Voltron start us up sans Arbuckle, so we were slogging our way through some piece when Geezy made her grand entrance into the sanctuary, the bright lights bouncing off her Elvis Pressley-like overcoat, creating a blinding beacon out of her entire body. Apparently moved by our strained crooning, she parked herself in front of the group and majestically simulated the arm swings of a choir director, and for a moment, we miraculously allowed ourselves to be directed by a squat, glowing Elvis impersonator. Christmas magic.

Explaining Dirty Santa to people who are a million years old: In preparation for our Christmas choir gathering, J. Arbuckle proposed that, in addition to bringing cheddar cheese, bacon bits, and sour cream for our ultra-nutritious baked potato feast, we also bring a gift for “Dirty Santa.” Upon speaking these words, there were gasps of shock and looks of fear and scandal on the faces of our humble choir. “DIRTY?” Eddie Munster lamented. “I do not laik thayut.” J. Arbuckle backpeddled, “No! No, it doesn’t have to be inappropriate gifts. They can be legitimate presents.” The frowns and furrowed brows remained. “Well, whai do we need to give giyufts at awl?” These types of concerns were vocalized with J. Arbuckle assuring that it was just an idea and that we could simply choose not to do it. But some sense of Southern, Christian propriety meant that we had to passive-aggressively participate in whatever one person wanted to with all manner of sighs, rude looks, and undermining questions.  “Well, how expensive are these giyufts?” J. Arubuckle paused, clearly searching his brain for the answer that would offend the least. Tentatively, he offered, “Errrrr….teeeeennnnnnnnnn dollars?” Again with the gasps. “TEN?!” We negotiated down to 5 before the new line of questioning began. “Ayund do girls bring giyufts for girls and boys for boys?” J. Arbuckle was totally thrown by this bizarre question. “What?” Much confused talk finally cleared up the bruhaha and made sure that everyone understood that the gifts should not be gender specific and should be 5 dollars and under. We finally moved the conversation toward the evening’s musical selections when Jabba interrupted, “Wait a minit,” he bellowed. “So do I bring a MALE gift?” J. Arbuckle then reenacted the scene below:

before reexplaining everything.

“AH, so I get a NEUTER gift. Got it.”

http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/post/71019311712/merry-christmas-from-garfield-minus-garfield

 

Bizarro Children’s Moment presentations

Children’s moment is a time during the Sunday service during which all of the people under the age of 18 parade down to the front of the church, sit on the carpeted steps, and get talked down to about how to be a good person. A different church member takes on the responsibility of making a boring pedantic babyish speech every week. The week before Christmas, the church’s 5 youths had the pleasure of being lectured by Nose Hair, the ancient husband of Frau Blucher.

One never knows what to expect from these children’s moments as they usually have some kind of boring gimmick. This time, the opening gimmicky question to the handful of children was “Do you ever get bored?” delivered by Nose Hair as he paced back and forth holding a mid-sized brown paper bag. There was a pause during which these poor souls looked at one another as if to silently ask, “Is this the? What? I mean, do we just say yes?” Eventually, one brave acolyte answered, “Yes?”

“Whadda you do when you’re bored?”

Almost simultaneously they responded, “Watch T.V.”

“Well, when I get bored around the holidays, I play with…. FROSTY.”  He opened his paper bag and pulled out a stuffed snowman, and upon squeezing its middle, a tinny electronic holiday melody eeked sadly out of the yellowed toy. At first we all laughed, but our laughter quickly fell silent as Nose Hair held up his hand mike to Frosty’s throat in attempt to amplify these songs then stared, un-moving, at these children. We were all silently wishing for a swift end to the tune, and exhaled relieved at its conclusion. “Idn’t that nice? But wait! There’s more!” He gave Frosty an additional squeeze and resumed his frightening, wide-eyed, staring position, holding the children and the church captive to this musical terror. Somehow he managed to tie this concept of relieving childhood boredom via stuffed knickknacks to relieving the ancient shepherds’ job-related boredom by being alerted to the Messiah’s birth and having to find him in a stable. I’m still a little confused by the take-home message.

Sundee Marnin' Service

Some has been said about the choir rehearsal, but nothing has been noted about Sundee marnin service. Here’s a run down of the day.

10:30 The choir gathers in our frigid underground lair to don the flowing white robes and shiny stoles that serve as our costumes for the production.

10:33 High five Big Geezy, receive my weekly cheek kiss (always so wet), and compliment her on the latest fashion creation she’s sporting. Last week, it was a bedazzled off-white sweater trimmed in thin, gold rope which apparently belonged to her (long since dead) mother in law. Flashy ladies they be. 

10:35 We almost always hear an anecdote about J. Arbuckle’s new dog, Lonelynomore, the only creature he has in his life to comfort him during his battle with gout. Yes, J. Arbuckle has gout in his knee. No, J. Arbuckle is not a 17^th century pirate; he is a 30 year old music graduate student. According to Mayo Clinic’s online compendium for hypochondriacs and self-proclaimed physicians, gout can be caused by an over consumption of “organ meats, anchovies, herring, asparagus and mushrooms,” so I’m assuming we can check those things off of our what-to-get-J-Arbuckle-for-Christmas list.

10:40 Without so much as singing a do, re, or mi in attempt to warm up our voices, we jump right in and rehearse the day’s anthem. No one remembers it from the thousand other times we rehearsed it before this moment, and it sounds like a bunch of people, disoriented from just having woken up from a nap in the middle of the day, moaning in time to a coherently performed piano accompaniment. But that’s okay, because Voltron plays our parts again, J. Arbuckle gives us a few little tips, and before we know it, it’s show time.

10:55 I ride with Big Geezy in the elevator—instead of walking the one flight of stairs—and we book it to line up with the rest of the choir who has long since queued up outside the sanctuary, lookin’ fierce in our official God gear, ready to make our grand entrance. Every week there is bickering about the various arrival times of each member—who waited for who to close the elevator door, who should have taken the stairs, etc.

10:57 We file into the sanctuary to the glorious and powerful strains of…Frau Blucher sightreading a hymn on the piano (with the occasional timidly improvised flourish). The day is good when everyone successfully mounts the THREE carpeted stairs that stand between us and the choir loft. We have had good days and bad, the most notable bad day being when Big Geezy face-planted IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE CHURCH on stair number 2 of 3. One moment we saw Geezy upright, and the next, she was down, limbs-a-flailin’. There was a gasp from the congregation and the classic momentary flub in the live piano music as a host of robed figures crowded her to offer assistance. Moments later she was on her feet, clearly embarrassed, but miraculously unbroken. 

11-12 Church happens. Prayers are prayed. Songs are sung (EVERY LAST VERSE OF EVERY HYMN). Laughtrack laughs. Sermons are preached. My favorite sermon is detailed below.

Special UMW (United Methodist Women) Service: A few Sundays ago, the laydees of the church took control and led our hour or worship, sprucing up our mundane moments (such as boring ole pastoral prayer time, where the name of every ailing, bruised, scraped, slightly headachy, and terminally ill church member is called out and wished a speedy recovery) and turning them into wildly out of control hootenannies. Behold, the UMW “Women Through the Years Slideshow Remembrance,” during which 1,000 pictures from the late 80s to mid 90s were displayed, flipping at a snail-like pace from one to the other, all with captions reading “Women Fixin’ Refreshments, Dottie Hawkins and Suella Mae Clark, 1991,” “Eating refreshments with Mildred Chancel and Frankie Simmons, 1987!” or perhaps, “Women love to eat! Cakes and pies with Susan Doyle and Dottie Mae Duncan, 1994.” The name Dottie appeared countless times.

The most amazing part of this particular service was the sermon, delivered by Roz, as in the slug-like secretary from Monsters Inc. famous for constantly chiding Mike Wazowski and droning, “Don’t forget to file your paperwork.” UMW Roz resembled the movie version insofar as they share the same stretched facial features—a wide mouth with giant, sleepy eyelids—and they both inch along laboriously, barely moving the upper body. The rest was a bit different.

Imagine, if you will, Grandpa Simpson being given the platform of the pulpit and allowed to speak for an indeterminate length of time.

We can't bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell 'em stories that don't go anywhere - like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Give me five bees for a quarter, you'd say.

Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones... (Grandpa Simpson, Last Exit To Springfield, Season 4)

Now imagine William Faulkner narrating Grandpa Simpson’s inner monologue/stream of consciousness narration of this sermon. This barely comes close to expressing how entirely obfuscating, psychedelic, and impossible to follow Roz’s rambling words were.  Essentially, she strung together patchy remembrances of her time in UMW, never giving us the context for these experiences nor wrapping them up in any kind of definitive way, rather transitioning hazily into the next. Here is a partial reconstruction of one of these moments:

And then I went to the prisons. I didn’t want to go to the prisons, but I felt I needed to,    and I had a meetin’ the next town over in that prison, and in my house were SEVEN GIGANTIC boxes. SEVEN! Can you imagine? And they were open, all of ‘em. Opened up in my house when LOW AND BEHOLD, the children’s home done called. And I with SEVEN boxes in my house, well, I just about had a fit, but that’s just the way it is. And another thing I did was…

And so on. 30 minutes later, without warning or signal that things were wrapping up, she said, “Well thank you for listenin’ to my stories, and sorry for muh raspy voice,” and began her eternal descent of the 3 stairs.

On the next episode, tune in to find out who won the Academy Award for Best Actor or Actress in a Religious Mole Project. It may not be who you think!