The internet is a cruel monster. It makes people do odd things. I raise this point as I look at our slumped Very Reverend “Mumbles” Te Deum in the corner. The previous Sunday he had done something that was out of the norm for our leader in all things of a spiritual vein at the club (the home of homes). To put you fully in the picture, our Mumbles has been taking a beating lately from a new internet site called GradeTheSermon.ca. The poor padre was absolutely punished by the web, only receiving a lowly single “prune” out of a possible five for his weekly 10-minute speech during the Sunday service.
“One of the lowest ratings in the Anglican world,” he wailed after several martinis a month ago. He had recently been called up on the cathedral carpet by the Bishop to explain why he was regularly stuck amongst the single prunes accompanied by a sea of comments such as “Wooden as usual,” “A waste of space,” “Yawn” and “He is driving me toward atheism.”
Mumbles very much took exception to “A miracle cure for insomnia” and had a dark suspicion who had written such a libelous statement (the Brigadier).
I pointed out to the minister that many club mems lived under the same shadow of today’s internet as he did. In fact several hotel owners sitting about the senior reading room had been burned by terrible reviews from people who had possibly never stayed at their establishments as guests.
These come from “trolls,” I am told, or just troublemakers who live in basements and have too much time on their hands because of their anti-social tendencies. It is a form of stalking, hurting and generally doing harm in the anonymous world of hate mail. Mumbles just mumbled darkly about prunes. We could see he was not going to take these slurs much longer, as he came more and more to resemble Vesuvius’s big brother.
It was all brought to a head last Sunday, when most of the mems attend the once a month so-called “Club Service”.
Because of the horribly poor church attendance during the summer slumber, each Sunday was named for a particular group in the hopes of attracting people of that ilk. The week before had been called “The Alcoholic Alms,” which did, we were told, a brisk business, at least during the communion, with big takings in the collection plate area. The singing however was a little disheveled.
The Club Service started loudly with Onward Christian Soldiers, which apparently has fallen into disrepute as too martial a hymn for the modern sensitivity of the “new” Anglican church. After a rousing singing of the much missed tune, we moved swiftly through the two lessons, another burst of song and some minor blessings, approaching the usually woeful sermon at a quick pace.
However there was something worrisome about Mumbles as he paced in front of the frightened organist. As the final blessing was being given by the timid verger, the Very Reverend blew a head valve.
“All right,” he shouted at his employee, “that’s enough of that.” The congregation sat stunned. Someone coughed nervously.
“Shut up, you fool, pay attention,” Mumbles said. We shifted in our seats uncomfortably as a visiting bishop legged it for the street.
“From Deuteronomy 6:15: For the Lord thy God is a jealous GOD,” he bellowed. He then took off into the part of Genesis where somebody was a hairy man but he was a clean man etc., all the while staring at the hirsute Brigadier, his presumed nemesis. He shot forward into the book of Judges and the bit about slaying thousands with nothing but the jawbone of an ass. Several children started crying, which provoked Mumbles into telling them to stop sniveling or join a Unitarian church, where anything goes.
All in all, it was a terrible sermon that only ended when a few of the well- muscled bell ringers charged the lectern, gagged Mumbles and took him to the vestry. Madness is never pleasant.
However the internet loved it and there are several “clips” of our old friend’s breakdown. Very sad, although he did receive an unexpected two and half prunes.
Copyright Major’s Corner 2014
www.majorscorner.com
Keith Murdoch
I find morning service to be a fine time to have a pre prandial nap during the sermon, K.