My Morning Prayer

Dear God,

Much like a box of cereal insists, I wanted to let you know, Lord, that I have both a question and a comment this morning. First off, I want to thank You for allowing me to make it all the way to Clara’s day care this morning in the HOV-2 lane without the Virginia State Police pulling me over to do a passenger count. You have no idea how often this happens. (Oh wait. Omniscience. I forgot. You know exactly how often this happens.) Secondly, I would like you to mess with Susan Gibbs of the Archdiocese of Washington this morning. Can you make this happen? Nothing major, far from a smiting. You know, just something hilarious. How about when she’s in a staff meeting this morning and stops to take a sip of coffee, you’ve turned that coffee into mayonnaise. That sounds about right. Anyway, keep up the good work, what with all the management of the Universe and such.

In Your Name I humbly blog,
Chris

As I’ve no doubt touched on before, one of the central tenets of my belief structure about God involves Him having an incredible sense of humor. Not to reiterate, but there’s too much that happens in a coincidental uproarious way in life to think the contrary. He can appreciate a good joke/prank/rambling blog with a Detroit Lions color scheme. And what’s more? God likes Himself some good Capitalism. After all, if he decided to give humankind the Achilles’ Heel of Free Will, you better believe He’d subscribe to an economic system where man inherently is designed to act in his own best self-interest.

You know what an off-shoot of capitalism is? Marketing.

So when the worlds of comedy and capitalism collide, you know you’ve got a winner in God’s eyes. And a winner we had in the DC Metro (WMATA)’s commercial to encourage people to take public transportation to the Papal Mass that will be held in Nationals Park in a few weeks. Considering the parking situation over there, it’s a good idea, and if you’re going, you should probably adhere.

Check out the video….here.

The attention to detail in this 107-second only for the Internet's ad is truly excellent. The Car and Pontiff mag our first metro rider is reading is expertly crafted, the Latin chanting of all dialogue is nearly perfect, and even the appearance of the Arlington Catholic Herald in the background is a nice touch. Aside from the fact that the Metro is 238% less crowded than usual, it’s a spot-on pre-enactment.

(DELETED SCENE: Pope using divine intervention to solve the Sudoku in the Post Express paper.)

Now, the ads have been pulled, thanks to our villain Susan Gibbs. From the Post:

"Our concern is that this was a bad bobblehead," said Susan Gibbs, a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Washington. "You had unauthorized merchandise, and you had a misdressed pope."

To my knowledge, bobbleheads are incapable of sin. So what’s so bad about them? Ok, so apparently Popes don’t wear red skull caps, and their choice of cape color may also be misguided. But seriously?

Anyways, it shall live on in YouTube infamy, and more people will see it now then before BECAUSE of the controversy, so it appears God intends to have the last laugh. (Psstt…MAYONAISE IN THE COFFEE.)

In the meantime, be careful how you treat your Bobblehead Pope. Just because he can’t say no doesn’t mean you can ask for all the plenary indulgences you wish.

An Open Letter to God, the Baseball Fan

Dear God,

I know your preferred method of correspondence is prayer, but let’s face it, I’m at work and I’ll get more than a few strange looks kneeling behind my desk. I am not writing you out of desperation…yet. But I want you to know that there are two sides to everything and it’s possible that you may have not yet realized the good in the pinstriped half of the National League Divisional Series.

Take 2 Corinthians as an example. Sure, Paul used his “A” Material in 1 Corinthians (“without love, I am nothing” is some inspirational stuff, Lord – nice assist on that one), but that doesn’t mean that 2 Corinthians is no better than a cut-rate sequel written by a man who got overly excited about making the Book. There’s still valuable scripture in there.

I read an article that came out last summer about the Colorado Rockies. It was in the USA Today, and while I do not know if their circulation extends beyond the Pearly Gates, but I tell ya, those full color picto-charts have their appeal. I’ve linked it here, but I doubt God uses a mouse to click through get his information. Anyway, the story is thus: the Rockies’ organization are guided by Christianity, and regularly hold prayer meetings to build not only as baseball players, but as fine moral men. As you well know, you’re not going to find a Playboy, expletive-laden music, or Devil’s Food cake in the locker room.

I thought the Angels and Padres were more apt teams to become the God Squad.

Look, I’m proud of the Rockies and what they are trying to do. No matter what thy calling is, one should try and make an effort to devote their vocation to You, as they will be rewarded with everlasting life, I got that. I’m a finance analyst and my favorite arithmetic operation is addition since the symbol resembles tiny crosses. But is Divine Intervention the way to win a Divisional Series? Can the Almighty choose favorites in America’s Past Time?

Revelations 2:2 -- I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men.

God, neither dugout is full of wicked men. For they both have worked hard to make the post-season. And while I know you have a history of rewarding those who hold your Being in highest regard, and I know Todd Helton’s beard is his daily reminder to walk in your footprints, and Clint Hurdle pens “Jesus” in on the “Bench” section of his lineup card, but what about the Phillies? They are good guys, too! Could you, maybe, I don’t know, let these two teams duke it out, without carrying Matt Holliday fly outs over the fence?

I’m telling you, Lord, my Phils are good guys. Jimmy Rollins often misses practice to walk old ladies across the street. Shane Victorino is still an altar boy in his local parish since the robes from when he was 12 still fit. Chase Utley memorized Acts of the Apostles during a rain delay in Florida. Ryan Howard has The Golden Rule branded into each of his bats. Pat Burrell prays in the outfield every game that he won’t get hit with a battery. Aaron Rowand must live with the Fire of God in him – there’s no way a man can live his life with so much reckless abandon without having an after-life plan in place. Abraham Nunez is the only Latino Jew I’ve ever known. Carlos Ruiz’s sign for a slider inside is actually the sign of the cross. And Kyle Kendrick – our pitcher today for Game 2 – just finished Sunday School.

Lord, those boys in red are good boys. So while the Rockies get all the Ink of God, keep in mind that the Fightin’ Phillies will totally invite you to their World Series Parade. If you let them.

Oh, and thanks for “mentioning” to Charlie Manuel that Adam Eaton sucks. Didn't want to see him on the postseason roster. Smite him at will.

In Your Name,

Chris Condon
Phillies Fan

Don't Mess With Taxes

Talk about holding a grudge.

Throughout the New Testament of the Bible, it’s frequently mentioned that one of the main groups Jesus returns to Earth to combat are tax collectors. Along with prostitutes, Pharisees and Atlanta Braves fans, the tax collectors are often called out by the Gospel writers as the living embodiment of greed, evil, and non-negotiable deduction policy. Can’t say I blame them, honestly. Who likes paying taxes?

It has long been theorized that God used the parables and unfavorable caricatures of tax collector because of what they did to cheat honest, hard-working people. It wasn’t that God was anti-tax; look, when His Son was walking from town to town, I’m sure He was glad that there was public Kingdom funding that created an inter-village highway system. Without it, it’s just a dozen or so be-sandaled guys wandering aimlessly through the Desert.

(The GPS of the time, the North Star, was a little hard to see during the day.)

Yes, in Jesus’ teaching, the tax collector was often the villain because of his deceitful ways. But there are cracks in this theory. After all, the Son of God accepted Matthew, a tax collector, into his posse. If God hated the tax collector so much, this would have never happened. It’s like inviting a bunch of your friends to go to a very genre-specific outdoor concert, and making sure you convince your one country-music hating friend to come along for the hell of it. In addition, we know that Jesus didn’t hate the tax collector because of His agreeing to eat dinner in the house of Zacchaeus, the Michael Jordan of all Biblical tax collectors. Surely, if it was tax collectors he hated, there’s no way Jesus stiffs his followers for a fine meal with Public Enemy Number One.

(That is, unless Mrs. Zacchaeus makes a mean pot roast.)

What does this all mean? It’s simple, really. God doesn’t hate the Taxman.

He just hates Taxes.

I have no idea what the Big Guy’s Master Plan for the funding of Civil Service and Community Spending, but taxes are NOT the answer. Aside from making sure His selected biographers wrote scathing depictions of those who collected 38% of your weekly wage for a living, it wasn’t personal. It’s the taxes that He’s disagreed with all these years. How do we know this?

On Monday, the Internal Revenue Service declared that all Americans affected by the recent Nor’easter storm that ran up the East Coast would be granted a two-day extension to pay their taxes on time. Because many people were stranded at airports – far, far away from their shoeboxes of receipts – the IRS decided to come to the rescue. They’ve granted 48 additional hours of calculations and withholdings for the down-on-their-luck Americans who still want to pay lots and lots of money to fund that stupid federal appropriation for everyone to wear name tags. That’s right, a storm almost prevented you from having to pay taxes. Weather! Natural Disaster occurrences!

God was trying to give you a free pass.

Why? Because He hates Taxes. It’s not like this is the first time the Almighty has used his meteorological know-how to make his point. What’s that? Wickedness of humankind got the Ruler of Creation down? Whatever. I’ll just unleash this 40 DAY FLOOD. That’ll do the trick.

Thanks for the rowboat, IRS. We are forever indebted to you for your bravery to allow me to do something I don’t want to do, and defy God in the process. In the process, you’ve probably incurred God’s wrath. Just wait until he steals the Sun from you during audits. Where are your precious solar-powered calculators now???

Note: If this were me, I would have just postponed Tax Day and scheduled a day-night doubleheader next April.

Sacramentally Insane

Say what you will about God: He sure does plan for the long-run.

Much of Christianity is based on a set of common events in which its believers can receive signs of inward grace called sacraments. These sacraments are considered to be instituted by Jesus Christ himself – things that He did in his time that you too can do in your time in order to be closer to God.

Consider them a prophetic set of cut-the-line passes.

Yes, through the use of these sacraments you can be on the receiving end of a special blessing as a thank you from the Almighty for your continued support of his rule over all existence. (Way better than a politician bumper sticker, in my opinion.) Hey, if you’re lucky, you’ll get a sense of enlightenment regarding His teachings in the process. You should be proud to be a recipient of a holy sacrament. You don’t even have to do something outlandish to receive it.

That’s where the forethought of God comes in.

This past weekend, we held a baptism for our daughter, Clara. It was a beautiful ceremony at our church in Fairfax, and a reception followed shortly thereafter so that we could show our appreciation to you all for the support of the Most Documented Human on Earth. What might you remember of your Baptism? The actions are probably memorable – it probably involved all the big people in the room ganging up on the tiniest people in the room and dousing her with cold water. In action, you’re absolutely right. But what’s more?

Baptism is a sacrament.

This is where God called His shot eons ago. He wanted a way to honor those who were ready to enter his Kingdom and figured, “Hey, it should be a ceremony of some kind. I need to come up with a symbolic way to show the removal of original sin and the following vibrancy of a newfound Christian. Hmm…what to do?” (Drumming his fingers on his desk caused the Great Earthquake of 241 BC.)

This is why I’m thankful that God took the time to plan something symbolic and clever. By the use of water, it symbolizes the washing away of original sin, allowing the newly baptized to lead a new life, clean and new. Now what if some of God’s other ideas, which ended up on the cutting room floor, had been used for the sacrament of Baptism?

What if he thought we should do jumping jacks? Or hold a heavy stone over our heads? Or be able to list the world’s capitals alphabetically in under two minutes? God charged himself with coming up with something that would stand the test of time – a protocol that would be as practical and relevant on Day 1 of the church as it would be on Day – um – Eleventy Billion.

Let’s review some of those other scenarios, shall we? Jumping jacks for the vanquishing of original sin? First off, babies don’t jump so high, and secondly, the name Jack wouldn’t come into existence until the Old English got their hands on the Hebrew name John. And aside from the physical limitations many true believers have from lifting heavy stones over their heads, some might not know when to put them down, prolonging baptisms until everybody’s out of film. Oh, and the world capital test? It would have been way easier to pass that one when the world consisted of two or three empires. That’s not fair for us moderns. Besides I bet none of you know the capital of Lesotho of the top of you heads.

God came up with the pouring of water, the spoke rite, and the sign of the cross in place of all those crazy sacramental ideas. I guess He’s telling us something else with Baptism.

The Earth will always have water.

Humans will always have heads.

(Note: It’s a good thing God was all about the pre-planning. I suspect if He was designing Holy Communion today, He would have dropped bread from the equation in favor of Hot Pockets. I hear He loves them.)

(Several) Pennies from Heaven

Your team wins the Super Bowl, and you assume you have the run of His Kingdom.

Look, I was a college student once. I know what it’s like to have to work hard for a little spending money on the weekends. I worked at the Dean of Students Office, where the most mentally stimulating thing I got to do was to look through all you student application files (little known fact: Nordberg was a baton twirler in high school) But hey, I made minimum wage, and that paid for pizza on the weekends. What Kevin Russell of Hobart, Indiana did? Well that’s just wrong.

For those too lazy to click through this link, this 21-year old tried to cash a check in the amount of $50,000 at his local bank. And if that’s not suspect enough for you, it turns out that the One who was paying to the order of Kevin Russell was none other than God.

Yep, the old King Savior, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Servant. And that’s not me just throwing accolades the Almighty’s way. That’s the way God apparently signs his checks. Now Kevin Russell is in jail for check fraud as well as intimidation (I guess faulty funds transfers involving omnipotent deities will get you that charge.)

I’ve heard of televangelists getting rich in the name of the Lord, but college students? That’s a new one. So while Russell awaits a court date, we here at the YABNews desk spent all night praying, and out prayers have been answered. God, thanks for granting us this interview.

God: Not a problem, My child.
Chris: So God, let’s get the facts straight. This WAS a fraudulent check, right?
God: Of course it was. I’ve been known to reward ingenuity in the past – Michaelangelo did such a nice job painting that ceiling that I made sure someone in the future named a Ninja Turtle after him – but monetary payouts? That’s not exactly my style.
Chris: So you’re saying you don’t have a checkbook?
God: Well, of course I have a checkbook. Someone’s got to pay the Sun so it doesn’t cut off our power. But there’s two ways to know if a check from Me is authentic.
Chris: Oh yeah? Do tell.
God: First off, there’s no way I have a savings account at the Chase Bank in Hobart. All of my accounts are kept safely at First Bank of St. Matthew. Once my tax collecting apostle came to Heaven, I had to give him something to do rather than insist to the other guests that they owe tax. For the record, there are no taxes in heaven.
Chris: So what happens on April 15th up there?
God: We have a barbeque luau. Last year we got Mozart to headline.
Chris: And the second check of authenticity?
God: My checks are HUGE. I get them from the same place the Publisher’s Clearing House gets theirs. It’s way more fun that way.
Chris: Of course. I should have known. So Lord, I’m in the market to buy some real estate. Do you have any advice for me?
God: Let me read you a passage from My Biography. (summons his Bible) In Timothy 6, it reads “Surely then, as far as physical things are concerned, it is sufficient for us to keep our bodies fed and clothed.” I say that shelter goes along with that. And while I love all my children, it should be noted that I find apartment complex landlords often use free will to stick it to good, hard-working people. This displeases me.
Chris: That’s what I figured. So what becomes of Kevin Russell, the man who thought he could swindle you out of a cool half mil?
God: There is an old Proverb (28:20 to be exact) that says, “The faithful man will be richly blessed, but one eager to get rich will not go unpunished.”
Chris: Sounds like a dagger to me, Kev.

Undercover Savior

Over 2000 years of Christianity, the hardest question for latter-day believers to answer is not the marketing genius of “What Would Jesus Do?”, but rather the more carefully defined “What Did Jesus Say?” Motivational speakers may insist that actions speak louder than words, but when it came to the Son of God, he held an ace up his sleeve. Sure, his actions (turning water into wine, the miraculous buffet line at Cana) were righteously cool, but when you have the trump card that anything you say becomes Truth, well then, that’s a mighty power, isn’t it?

(Of course, that meant Jesus had to be a straight-shooting orator with no wavering. What if the early Christians didn’t understand sarcasm? He could have said something like, “Oh yeah, Jude, you could TOTALLY knock down that tree if you ran into it headfirst like a bull.” Had Jesus been sarcastic, I’m sure we would have gone through Apostles faster than the Flyers do goalies. Ok, back to the point.)

Fortunately for modern Christians, the early shift wrote down many of these Words of God in a well-translated and unabridged compendium of Godspeak. Today, we know it as the Bible. (Previous fad names that have faded over the years: The Chronicles of Jesus, Lord of the Things (All of ‘Em!), and The Almighty Deity in the Hat) Now when a Christian wants to know what God and the Church teach on a matter, they can easily flip open the Good Book and do some research. Don’t believe us? Fine.

As an example, let’s look at hunting.

I mean, sure, God only spent one of his first seven days of Creation coming up with all crazy sorts of animals to populate the Earth, but wouldn’t the Almighty get mad if his favorite creation (read: us) started taking potshots at the other members of His Kingdom as they try to innocently cross a meadow or stream? What if you were in that position? Say you spent all day building a fleet of Lego spaceships – a real majestic set of crafts that would make even George Lucas blush. And while getting a sandwich from the kitchen, the one Lego Technic (the ones with the motors) battle cruiser you built flips out and just starts smashing fighter jet after fighter jet. Wouldn’t you feel up for some post-lunchtime smiting of that one rogue Technic?

Hell yes you would.

(The previous example needs two disclaimers – 1) I don’t currently have time to play with Legos, although I would totally like to, and 2) I never had any Lego Technic sets, so I may be speculating on their abilities a touch.)

According to Proverbs 12:27, "The slothful man roasteth not that which he took in hunting: but the substance of a diligent man is precious." Huh? Translated, this means that it is not wrong to hunt, but if one hunts for sport with no intention of using the animal for trade or food is slothful. Yes, he is full of sloth. Wait that makes zero sense at all. Ok, long story short, when you used to play Oregon Trail and would kill 32 bison in a single hunting session, but were only capable of carrying 200 pounds back to your shoddy covered wagon – that was morally wrong as per God. Which is probably why on the way to the next town you son Johnny dyed of dysentery. Payback’s a bitch.

While we feel that this was incredibly helpful for all you hunters out there, we’re a little worried that YAB doesn’t exactly reach to the far corners of the forest. Even laptop-toting hunters probably can’t get a wireless signal up in their little tree perches, and therefore, have no way to know how God is accounting for their actions. Lucky for YAB, we have help in the fight to spread God’s word.

Like OneSource Outfitters.

That’s right, hunting people! You can take the Word of God with you on your next foray into shooting animals for food and profit with your very own Camo Bible! It’s the New King James Version (King James was known to be a deadly marksman for quail back in the day), and features a mossy Oak Breakup camouflage cover. Now as you wait up in your crow’s nest with weapon drawn, you can sooth your nerves with some delightful Psalms, or maybe get pumped with the fire and brimstone of Revelations. Why? Because that deer over there can’t see your Bible, now that it’s been covertly dressed.

As for you in a BRIGHT ORANGE VEST, well, that’s another issue.