Brain-dead Beatitudes (and Other Pearls of Wisdom)

Rodger’s and Hammerstein’s Carousel was reprised on TV recently.  Like many of the Andrew Lloyd Weber musicals, it contains some of the most beautiful, uplifting music ever written; and also like the latter, it contains some of the most sorry story lines ever written.  In Carousel, the story revolves around a ne’er-do-well carnival worker who befriends (and then impregnates) a girl, whom – for good measure – he “beats up” (physically abuses), after which he kills himself.  Uplifting, huh?! (Kind of reminds me of a certain school principal’s son!).

It also reminds one a lot of “Traddieland,” where some of the most beautiful, uplifting “performances” are put on by some of the vilest vipers this side of “the nether regions.”  The similarities are striking: give them a good “show,” but play down the “dark side” of things.  Use “flowery” dialogue to pander your poison (or camouflage it in sanctimony), and the ’”dumbed down” (aka “brain-dead traddie”) audience won’t notice (or care).  Now to go along with that theme, we at Lay Pulpit think it only fitting that the brain-dead be supplied with some sort of “brain-dead precepts or axioms to live by; and we have come up with some!  We call them the “Brain-dead Beatitudes, and other pearls of wisdom.”  Are you ready?  Here are the “beatitudes”:

Brain-dead “Beatitudes”

• Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth (but they must sign over the mineral rights to Danny and Tony).

• Blessed are the ignorant, for they shall obtain bliss (and blessed are the abysmally ignorant, for they shall obtain bottomless bliss).

• Blessed are the ignorant, for they are my main source of income.  … T. Droleskey

• Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for Work of Human Hands, for they shall be called electro-encephalic flat-liners.

• Blessed are they who give until it hurts, for we, their shepherds, shall put the hurt unto them until they give.

• Blessed are they who toil and suffer for the sake of the cult-center’s pontifical ostentation, for they shall be duly exploited – and they shall be called “children of the corn.”

• Blessed is he who seeketh the cult-master’s rod and his staff, for he shall obtain the shaft.

OK, so much for the “beatitudes.”  Here are our “pearls of wisdom”:

• “I think, therefore, I am.”  … DesCartes   “I think, therefore, I condescend.”  … A. Cekada

• “I write, therefore, you snore.”    … T. Droleskey

• “It is morally wrong to let a sucker keep his money.   .… D. Dolan

• “It is better to have gotten the wrong room at The Bishop’s Lodge, than to have never loved at all.    …. Anonymous**

** (Actually, there’s no such thing as the “:wrong room” at The Bishop’s Lodge!

• “To err is human.  To do it all the time is what our curriculum is all about.”   …   D. Sanborn

• “We have not turned our backs on the Infant of Prague – because I said so!    …. Your friendly board president

• “We have met the cesspool, and he is us!”    … Dan, Tony, Dr, D, et al

And, as an extra-added bonus, here is some timely advice for all the brain-dead, from your friendly neighborhood cult-master and/or your favorite purveyor of “chaos”:

• It’s “the show” and the sanctimony that count, boys and girls, not the sodomy and the sadism!

• You don’t have to practice what you preach, as long as the “practice” is behind closed doors.

• “Remember, boys and girls: reading Lay Pulpit is a mortal sin!

• How dare Lay Pulpit spread all that truth about us on the internet!  Remember, boys and girls: the internet is B-A-A-A-A-A-A-D – unless it’s our website!

• Remember, boys and girls: if it’s too good to be true…  believe us!

• And, remember, boys and girls, ‘tis better to give than to receive – especially when we’re doing the “receiving”!

Well, folks, the list could go on – but we don’t want to make this a Droleskey-esque marathon; “the point,” so to speak, “has been made.”  The “brain-dead,” of course, really aren’t brain-dead; they’re just stubborn intransigents who are too proud to admit that they put their money on moral losers.  They don’t care if their pastors are sodomites, sophists, and/or thieves, so long as they get their “show.”  We pity them, for they – like so many of their fellows (and especially their children) who have lost the faith, will suffer the ultimate disillusionment when the truth does finally sink in for them – at which point, they may lose their faith as well.

For many of them, their thinking has become so twisted that they’ll believe (or rationalize) anything, “so long as they get their show.”  One “traddie” who lives in northwestern Ohio, for instance, recently told a neighbor of his that the “guilt” of getting raped and engaging (giving or receiving) in oral sex are one and the same (actually, Phil, they are not: in the former case, one is the unwilling victim; and in either of the latter, one is a willing participant).  God help (and forgive) this man for his sick sense of “morality”!

Hopefully, people like that will “wake up” and realize what they are doing.  For those that do “wake up,” we welcome them; and for those that don’t – well -- we will, to use St. Paul’s words once again, “dust off our feet,” leave them to themselves, and move on.