Hallelujah Chorus
Good morning, y’all. It looks like Winter is going to come knocking before the Thanksgiving Turkey turns brown. One of my “things to be thankful for” this Thanksgiving might be that the temperature has come back up before the precipitation returns. I don’t know if I’m ever prepared for the first snow, but I know I’m not ready this year.
I tell you what, a foot of snow might be the only thing that can slow down the juggernaut that The Full Gospel Original Church of God has become. The church completed it’s two week revival today, and even watching on TV, I thought the Heavens might open up for some sort of Rapture like event to celebrate the culmination of a flawless performance. I mean it was kind of like watching the Atlanta Braves winning the World Series back in 1995. You expect there to be fireworks and bombs bursting in the air and other loud external sounds to confirm the joy you feel in your heart. Don’t know why we are more vindicated in our feelings by having explosions, but it seems to be a truism. Everybody does it. I’d just like to remind the Braves that has been twenty years since they were last able to send up World Series celebrations to themselves. By the way, I’m not thinking the new Brave’s stadium will help, although it is closer to us folks out here in “Whitopia”.
Anyway, enough talk about a failed enterprise, we’re talking about The Full Gospel Original Church of God. The final count of new souls and rededicated souls is not in, but the cash has certainly been counted. The two week revival has more than doubled the church’s best year in contributions. The actual money paid by Channel 99 in Blairsville to televise the service is a pittance compared to the donations coming in through the mail. The Full Gospel Original Church of God is “number one with a bullet” as they say in the recording industry, and that bullet is the Reverend Helen Handbasket.
I try to pry insight from Mulva about the psyche of the Reverend Handbasket each Sunday after the service. Unfortunately, my “psychiatry from afar” process first involves peeling Mulva from the ceiling. Mulva comes home so “high” from the service that I expect her to explode into tongues at any moment. We’ll talk “tongues” in depth another time, but for now let’s define “tongues” as being a state of being so “spirit filled” that you begin to articulate in ancient languages, or some other babble than no one can understand.
Now, it seems to be immoral to try to get some one to take a couple of drinks so that they’ll calm down enough to talk to you, particularly when they’ve just come from church. I have to rely on my cynical, sour mood to do the trick. I’ve gotten my “return Mulva back to the real world” routine back to about half an hour now. I won’t reveal any trade secrets, but war, famine and the torture of diabetic nerve pain play a part. Strong stuff I know, but I’m trying to figure out if the Reverend Handbasket has realized that she is the “Diana Ross” to The Full Gospel Original Church of God’s “Supremes”. You know that day is coming, I just want to be ready with my “I told you so”. Yes, I’m that kind of guy, at least where religion is concerned.
Mulva reports that the Reverend Handbasket is overwhelmed by the experience. The Reverend has returned to the office/vestry after each service to visit with the Elders during the counting of the tithes. The Reverend seems to be generally less interested in the “take” than in releasing some of her own feelings. Mulva reports that the Reverend chats incessantly during the counting and seems to be transitioning from “out of body” back to a corporeal state. Mulva has used the phrase “charged with electricity” more than once to describe how the Reverend appears after a service. Jokes about getting my batteries recharged have been part of my failed humor attempts in getting Mulva back to her normal state.
Speaking of back to normal, there are reports from the Widow Ferguson in Number Four that she has seen the Right Reverend Dale E. Bread “visiting his kids” at hours after their bedtime. I say if the Right Reverend Bread can find it in his heart for forgiving his little monster Devin for “the incident”, then he’s a better man than I am. I guess that goes without saying, but until I see my Irises come back, that kid is at the top of my list.