Well last night was hot enough to consume hot water without endangering oneself with the appendages of the Devil... Although my preferred drink throughout the evening was Lemon Lime and Bitters...

quote:

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Originally posted by The Coot:
.... she should keep in mind that the next day is the Feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord and of Basil the Great....

[tidied UBB - was missing appendages]

[ 30 December 2001: Message edited by: RuthW ]

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Oh no, I said I'd be back after Christmas. Ah well, you know how it is. Places to go, hairs to split, scotulae to polish (though I could be wrong about that).

The truth is, I and my good friend the famous Christian Captain Simon Jenkins have something far more anointed up our sleeves than a poxy 'Bulletin Board' thread (no offence!), that will truly do justice to the portion of the Spirit that the Sovereign Canopy Over All hath vouchsafed unto me.

Unfortunately that something is still pretty much stuck up at shoulder level (sleevewise), so I'll be in this unedifying dump for a while yet.

In the meantime, the Rev is in, and ready to give ear to your most degrading and humiliating problems. Come on siblings, let's have something genuinely hair-raising.

Now pay your helltithe.

Christmas was murder and I have credit cards to pay off.

I am so glad that you have returned, thus vanquishing my doubts as to your existance.

Please help my unbelief! I am constantly tormented by doubts as to the efficacy of your advice. How do I put these demons to flight?

Your agonised acolyte,

i have this itch....

can you scratch it for me please?

yours sincerely

viki

Baby, I've been waiting,
I've been waiting night and day.
I didn't see the time,
I waited half my life away.
There were lots of invitations
and I know you sent me some,
but I was waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come.

*sob sob* (I know I can cry on your strong shoulder) They've all run away!!! *boo hoo hoo* And what am I going to do now? *argh boo hoo hoo sob*

At least I can take comfort that you did not utterly forsake us, but have by the strength of your arm and the might of your right hand exalted over your given tasks, and have set us upon a high rock, yea, even upon a DRY rock!

I guess my problem *sob* is that they've all run away... And I am wondering whether it is because I have passed the age of extreme youthful libido and now regret the time I lost wooing Inspiration when I could have been *ahem* doing other things, or whether my state of mind is deranged and that this is the prime cause of emotional upset at this time. *sob* *Sob* I am wondering to what sort of spiritual defences I might erect, lest my state of mind deteriorates... *sob booooo hooooo hooooo sob*

Ever,

(and i know tomb is drooling in his eagerness to dispense certain people!)

Wasting clerical time is a very serious offence, Sibling Cow, and risks a sharp rise in your roasting time in purgatory.

Even formal membership of St Ursula's would not entitle you to summon the minister round to perform menial scratching work for you.

Baby, I've been waiting,
I've been waiting night and day.
I didn't see the time,
I waited half my life away.
There were lots of invitations
and I know you sent me some,
but I was waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come.

Merely subnormal, I'm glad to say.

There is nothing crackbrained about the symptoms you describe - waiting for a miracle for half your life. This simply suggests that you are a spiritual under-achiever, as my life is blessed with impossibilities on a more or less hourly basis, and most of us can at least claim one a week.

Why only this evening I was vouchsafed a miraculous revelation from on high that my cornish pastie was burning, and when I entered into the kitchen in all seemly haste, behold, it was as the Spirit had told me (as it would be).

Sibling Nunc, you don't say - well, anything very coherent, but first off - who precisely it is that has been running away from you.

Though, given the impression I get of you here - a decrepit old bird loudly bewailing missed opportunities for fornication - the answer would be more or less everybody.

I am wondering to what sort of spiritual defences I might erect, lest my state of mind deteriorates... *sob booooo hooooo hooooo sob*

Well, technically no. Seed spillage without involving animate beings other than yourself is classified as onanism. But as biblically both abominations are punishable by death, I don't see that it makes much difference.

quote:

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Originally posted by Rev Gerald Ambulance:
Anyway, how can you have been waiting all this time without a miracle? Haven't you heard of the Eucharist?

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My dear Rev. Gezz,

Yes, I have heard of the Eucharist, but that is not the miracle to which I'm referring. miraculous as it it. Perhaps the last verse will make it clearer:

quote:

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Originally posted by Rev Gerald Ambulance:

Anyway, how can you have been waiting all this time without a miracle? Haven't you heard of the Eucharist?

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i ain't contrary

yours cerely (i got candles burning, so i've definitely got wax!)

quote:

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Originally posted by Ultraspike:
My dear Rev. Gezz,

Yes, I have heard of the Eucharist, but that is not the miracle to which I'm referring. miraculous as it it. Perhaps the last verse will make it clearer:

"When you've fallen on the highway
and you're lying in the rain,
and they ask you how you're doing
of course you'll say you can't complain --
If you're squeezed for information,
that's when you've got to play it dumb:
You just say you're out there waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come."

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[host hat on]
Dearest Ultraspike:

Quoting two verses of this song is, perhaps, cutting the doctrine of "fair use" of copyright material a little too close. I encourage you not to post more than a very few lines, in order not to vex the Copyright Nazis, which would be a fate worse than the Rev. Jerry's Purgatory any day.

I put the kettle on, the shiniest one I could find. I am so glad you're back. The sheep you entrusted to me. I didn't lose a single one of them. Well. Maybe one. Or a few. But not so many as you'd notice unless they were a relative.

I hope you liked the advice I give 'em. Maybe if you liked it a lot you could give me a promotion? I could really strut in a cassock and a surplice. Can I be your verger? It means I will mop up the toilets if someone sicks up in them like happened at Midnight Mass. Also I get to carry a verge which is a stick with a metal bit on the end for me to clear a path through the heathen as I walk before you.

Eagerly awaiting your advice,

"When you've fallen on the highway
and you're lying in the rain,
and they ask you how you're doing
of course you'll say you can't complain --
If you're squeezed for information,
that's when you've got to play it dumb:
You just say you're out there waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come."

But the true church (High Pentecostal-Reformed) has always (more or less) held that the sacraments (all 12 of them) have been given authority to trample he laws of nature into the dirt.

Hmm. It's a tricky one, because for most people being in church is a cure for smiling in itself.

You are obviously thoroughly impervious to the things of God - unless, I suppose, it is an extremely mild outbreak of the Toronto Blessing. In which case, you must still be fairly impervious, having nothing more than such a late dribble of the Streams of Refreshing, when the rest of us were chortling, collapsing, pogoing and mooing for Jesus for many months about 7 years ago.

Indeed you did well, O faithful Coot. For what more can be desired of a ministerial stand-in than that they get stuck in, start well, and then let the whole thing fall apart to show who really has the anointing?

I hope you liked the advice I give 'em. Maybe if you liked it a lot you could give me a promotion? I could really strut in a cassock and a surplice. Can I be your verger? It means I will mop up the toilets if someone sicks up in them like happened at Midnight Mass. Also I get to carry a verge which is a stick with a metal bit on the end for me to clear a path through the heathen as I walk before you.

I don't see why not. Sounds like a jolly good idea.

I shall seek the Lord over it. Ooh, there he is....

He says it's OK and you can start by going round the graveyard with a strimmer.

Thankyou Jesus. Amen.

Yes.

What are you doing with cats around anyway? You obviously aren't familiar with chapter 17 of my recent publication The Lord Has A Case Against Harry Potter, which explains that cats a) have always been associated with witchcraft; b) are favourite guises for chape changing demons, and c) have satanic-style pointy faces.

You are therefore jeopardising your soul, your spiritual wellbeing and the longevity of all soft furnishings by having letting them in your house.

Fly from these agents of darkness, sibling, fly!

(Flying of course in a meataphorical, none witchcraftful way.)

What is the appropriate remedy, and do I have to have the Book Blessed again before its use will be efficacious in my life?

A friend recently asked me to help her to make up a song for a retreat she's helping to lead. I of course did my duty, and helped her with the lyrics, even when she requested that they be 'cheesy, childish rhyme scheme, with a good, rousing chorus'. However, she vetoed my verse about Jesus being the one true light, on the grounds that it was 'too serious'

Do I need to be washed in Holy Water? Or cleansed in any other way, after polluting my mind with such obscenities?

Yours faithfully, til the bitter end,

I have to say the second option sounds a lot more likely than the first.

quote:

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Originally posted by Rev Gerald Ambulance:
[ 26 January 2002: Message edited by: Rev Gerald Ambulance ]

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Your Holy Highness,

I'm shocked

You appear to be losing your touch, and making mistakes with the advice you give to others. Are you losing your touch? Should we find another whom the Lord will appoint and raise up to minister to us? Or should we just pray for you?

I um, have this thing for swords. BGF Swords red and hot and flaming - I borrowed Wood's a moment ago for the Harrowing of Heaven, and um... It's kind of, um, oh nevermind. I guess, um, ah, I should be confessing to having "borrowed" it, as I am not sure Wood knew at the time.

Well done, Sibling Ag, for having such a positive attitude to the work of the Lord.

The answer to your noble question is both really. It is pure Spirit that runs through my anointed outpourings, undiluted by such fleshly mixers as 'opinion'. However, it is my years of ceaseless absorption by sacred writ that have made me such a pure channel for the voice of the Almighty.

How can I obtain this gift, can it be purchased?

Thy money perish with thee, for thou hast thought that the gift of God can be purchased with money!

If you truly desire the gift, then follow the infallible 12-fold path, set out most helpfully in my bestselling The Road to Anointment, £8.99 from RGA Ministries.

Compared to you I feel so inadequate I think I will resign from my church and become a hermit living on top of a pole in the desert, refusing to speak unless you help me to be more like you and get for me this gift of giving majestic advice.

Ah, so you have been trying a bit of bibliomancy, the ol' close your eyes and poke the holy page, to seek the will of God for your dishwasher - but cannot understand the text that has been vouchsafed unto you. Yes?

Did you get yourself into a spiritually receptive frame of spirit first? This is very important.

Light a candle, burn some Ol’ Romanian incense and put on some truly holy music - I almost always go for Let Me Be A Living Mountain by the Tim Splendid Worship Trio.

Then take up a Bible, and say this prayer with perfect faith:

Mighty God, ‘tis up to thee
Show me what thou’d’st say to me.

Do I need to be washed in Holy Water? Or cleansed in any other way, after polluting my mind with such obscenities?

Well, of the record, yes, go for it. But I must warn you that I got into quite serious trouble with the RSPCA (godless animal-worshipping enemies of the way every one of them) for using a vacuum cleaner on cats.

Good start.

I'm shocked. You appear to be losing your touch, and making mistakes with the advice you give to others.

Quite the opposite. It was a clear case of technological attack from the Enemy - which, as any fool knows (and a fair number of wise people too), means I must be ministering mightily, to so provoke him.

Are you losing your touch?

No.

Should we find another whom the Lord will appoint and raise up to minister to us?

No.

Or should we just pray for you?

What should I do about my obsession with these sharp, hot instruments of, ah, death?

There's nothing wrong (or right) with swords in themselves, it all depends what you do with it. (As the National Rapier Association would say, it's not swords that kill, it's people, though it is somewhat harder to disembowel someone with a spoon.)

It's how you use your sword that matters: e.g. putting to flight the enemies of God - good; massacring nuns at prayer - bad; slaying apocalyptic beasts - good; mass murder of babies and children - a grey area, depends whether they live in the Promised Land or not.

What should I do about Wood?