Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Blessed With $46,000 After Using Prayer Rug!

So after a long day of self-evaluation at my new job in the unreal estate industry and visualizations of myself as Annette Benning's character in American Beauty, I come home to a mailbox stuffed full of bills and an envelope festively decorated with bible quotes and testimonials from Jesus' satisfied customers. Normally I would just toss it into the trash without even opening it, but I've been doing the personal trainer thing three times a week and my behavior has been, uh, er, unpredictable. And, so, enticed by the brilliant marketing of "These next 24 important hours are crucial to you. Timing is important to God." I took a deep breath and dove in. Having not been raised as the church-going type (thank god), and therefore not regularly exposed to crucifiction art, I nearly screamed when I pulled out a paper church prayer rug with a picture of Jesus complete with a crown of thorns, closed eyes and a small tear running down his nose. At the bottom of the paper prayer rug are instructions..."Look into Jesus' Eyes you will see they are closed. But as you continue to look you will see His eyes opening and looking back into your eyes. Then go and be alone and kneel on this Rug of Faith or touch it to both knees. The please check your needs on our letter to you. Please return this Prayer Rug. Do not keep it." At this point I am mystified...and wondering how did they draw this portrait in such a way that Jesus' eyes do actually open if you stare at it long enough? I'm also wondering what the Jesus capitalization protocol is since Eyes is capitalized after the name Jesus, but not capitalized after His. Hmm. Then I mosey over to the section where I am supposed to checkmark my prayer needs...and the choices abound...

( ) My soul.
( ) My Health.
( ) A Family Member's Health.
( ) To Stop A Bad Habit
( ) A Home To Call My Own.
( ) A New Car.
( ) A Money Blessing.
( ) Pray For God to bless me with this amount of money: $______
( ) Enclosed is my see gift to God's work of $_______

Does anyone else feel uncomfortable here? Then I move on to the testimonials from the clients of Saint Matthew's Church. C.D. from Pennsylvania writes "Dear St. Matthew's: God blessed me with over $5,000!" Mrs. T.F. from Texas writes "Our Lord...has blessed us with a big 6 room house!" E.C.S. from North Carolina thanked St. Matthew's because he/she "received $10,000 in a financial blessing!"

Religion is creepy. I wish I lived in a Blue State...with palm trees.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your are my Hero, anything I always wanted to be or at least the way I wanted to think..you are brilliant!! don't ever change, even if sometimes I don't agree with you..

Love,


Me

A* said...

Oh darling welcome to this wonderful new world of bottled insanity and extreme narcissism! Your first posting is brilliant (of course)as will be the others to come. Please call me soon! We have MUCH to talk about.
With love and crazy!