The Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time
Welcome to the Seventeenth
week of Ordinary Time.
Please
open your Hymnal to page 3 and join in our processional “O Lord
Please Don’t Burn Us” Verse 1
O LORD, please don’t burn us, Don’t grill or
toast your flock,
Don’t put us on the barbecue, Or simmer us in stock,
Don’t braise or bake or boil us, Or stir fry us in a
wok.
|
Watkins |
I'd like to
leave the army please, sir. |
|
Colonel |
Good heavens
man, why? |
|
Watkins |
It's
dangerous. |
|
Colonel |
What? |
|
Watkins |
There are
people with guns out there, sir. |
|
Colonel |
What? |
|
Watkins |
Real guns,
sir. Not toy ones, sir. Proper ones, sir. They've all got 'em. All of 'em,
sir. And some of 'em have got tanks. |
|
Colonel |
Watkins,
they are on our side. |
|
Watkins |
And
grenades, sir. And machine guns, sir. So I'd like to leave, sir, before I get
killed, please. |
|
Colonel |
Watkins,
you've only been in the army a day. |
|
Watkins |
I know sir
but people get killed, properly dead, sir, no barley cross fingers, sir. A
bloke was telling me, if you're in the army and there's a war you have to go
and fight. |
|
Colonel |
That's true. |
|
Watkins |
Well I mean,
blimey, I mean if it was a big war somebody could be hurt. |
|
Colonel |
Watkins why
did you join the army? |
|
Watkins |
For the
water-skiing and for the travel, sir. And not for the
killing, sir. I asked them to put it on my form, sir - no killing. |
|
Colonel |
Watkins are
you a pacifist? |
|
Watkins |
No sir, I'm
not a pacifist, sir. I'm a coward. |
Open your hymnal to page 23 and join us in singing “Philosopher’s Song” verse 2
Plato, they say, could
stick it away, Half a crate of whiskey every day
Aristotle, Aristotle was a
bugger for the bottle, And Hobbes was fond of his dram
And Rene Descartes was a
drunken fart, "I drink, therefore I am."
Yes, Socrates himself is
particularly missed, A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's
pissed
Now please open The Holy Text volume 2 to episode 42 page
278 where the prophets say … RAF banter
|
Bovril |
How was it? |
|
Squadron Leader |
Top-hole. Bally Jerry, pranged his kite right in the how's
your father. Hairy blighter, dicky-birdied, feathered back on his Sammy, took
a waspy, flipped over on his Betty Harper's and caught his can in the Bertie. |
|
Bovril |
Er, I'm afraid I don't quite follow you, Squadron Leader. |
|
Squadron Leader |
It's perfectly ordinary banter, Squiffy. Bally
Jerry...pranged his kite right in the how's yer father...hairy blighter,
dicky-birdied, feathered back on his Sammy, took a waspy, flipped over on his
Betty Harper's and caught his can in the Bertie. |
|
Bovril |
No, I'm just not understanding banter at all well today.
Give us it slower. |
|
Squadron Leader |
Banter's not the same if you say it
slower, Squiffy. |
Homily Parishioners, recently much ado has been made
about all the “good democratic union workers” getting laid off by the federal
government; as well as many other job reductions going on, so I thought it a
fit topic for this weeks homily. In case
you did not know the problem is both wide spread and effecting all levels of
the economy both at home and abroad. By way of an example small businesses are
getting shuttered at an astounding rate (https://www.retaildive.com/news/retail-store-closures-outpace-openings-2025/738105/#:~:text=Dive%20Brief%3A,remain%20steady%20at%20about%205%2C800).
With expected store closing in the U.S. outpacing store openings by
about 3 to 1. We will see no silver
lining in the small end of the economy.
The entertainment
industry is also experiencing serious job loss.
Recently the venerable “Technicolor” company announced it was shutting
down after more than a century of operations (https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/hollywood-company-technicolor-layoffs-20190031.php).
The loss of the company that brought us The Wizard of Oz among many other
color masterpieces is laying off all of its Kalifornia staff (about 200
workers) as well as all of its home office staff in France (about 4,500). With the total end of the company.
Continuing the international
situation Volkswagen is contemplating shutting down plants and layoffs (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-02/vw-plans-to-close-plants-in-germany-after-cost-cuts-fail-to-deliver).
These moves are being considered after standard cost savings cuts failed
to fix the company’s ailing bottom line.
Such cuts and closures would be the first in the Company’s (founded by
Adolf Hitler) nearly century long history.
With these
situations in mind perhaps some perspective can be drawn to the debates about
American government downsizing currently ranging about the country. Please remember that all job cuts are
painful, but when it was recently discovered that the TSA, an agency established
barely 20 years ago, has more full time workers doing “Union” business then
they have screening passengers, their actual business, the time for job
reductions across the federal government has well and truly arrived (https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dhs-ends-tsa-collective-bargaining-after-bombshell-finding-more-full-time-union-workers).
If one of the newest areas of government work has such a staggeringly
incompetent deployment of its workers, imagine how stupefying things must be at
the more long standing and entrenched departments!
Amen
Please
join us in our recessional on page 3 of your hymnal “O Lord Please Don’t Burn
Us” second verse.
Oh Please don’t lightly poach us, Or Baste us with hot
fat,
Don’t fricassee or roast us, Or boil us in
a vat,
And please don’t stick thy servants, Lord, In a
Rotissomat.
Comments
Post a Comment