Armed and Dangerous

One of the problems with setting yourself up as resident know-it-all, like me, is that people ask you questions or tell you stuff, much of which is unwelcome. What I have discovered is that people rarely want advice as much as they want someone to agree with their ideas. Years ago I worked as a guy who hired people for a major American corporation. One day my dad called me to ask for my advice on a decision one of my siblings was trying to make. He said that my sibling respected my knowledge and experience of the subject, which was a load of shinola. The two of them had hatched this plan and were shopping for an endorsement. Dad was a major buttinski. My sister had applied for a job in another state and was brought in for an interview, but was not selected. What she was proposing to do, was to just show up in this other state, uninvited and ready to work, to prove how much she wanted the job. My poor old dad, who had the ambition of a sloth, thought this was a swell idea, show initiative, that sort of thing, old boy. My dad wasn't British, but I like the expression, "old boy". The two of them figured that this would show that she was the sort of gal any employer would be thrilled to get. I explained to him that it was a bad idea and that she would just annoy the prospective employer, possibly poisoning her future prospects. He accused me of not being supportive. She did it anyway and was sent packing once more. She didn't want advice from someone in the field of human resources, she wanted someone to tell her it was okay. In the advice giving arena, you are often just the unsupportive jackass, or the moron who gave the bad advice. When advice given works out okay, the giver is rarely remembered. Anyway, today was my day to deal with people and their religion. A subject I am totally unqualified to address. Does that stop me? No way, no how. I sit in the cubicle next to a perfectly lovely woman. She attends one of these megachurces with a hip young pastor and a bunch of rock musicians. They are serious about assaults on the faith. I was passing by her cube today when I noticed her opening a gift, so I stopped to take a look. I am a nosy sort. The gift was a DVD called Debunking the Da Vinci Code, or something to that effect. I asked, "So what are you going to do with that?" She tells me that she needs to get current on the flaws in the book that are leading people astray, spiritually speaking. Never being one to let sleeping zealots lie, I ask for an example of the heresy of which she speaks. "Well", says she, "Jesus did not have children." "But, what if he did?", I ask, "does that void his divinity?' "Yes, then he couldn't be God." An assertion without explanation. "But, when I last checked, God did have a son, at least according to you Christians", says me. "See", she says, "this is why I need the DVD, so I don't get tripped up." I suggested she believe what she believes, hang around with like minds and don't sweat what Dan Brown wrote in a book. No go, she has to change hearts and minds and change them fast. Time's awastin'. Now technically speaking, she didn't ask for my advice, but then she didn't tell me to scram either, so I weighed in. I read the Da Vinci Code, twice. It is crappola. Not from a theological perspective, about which I am not fit to comment, but as a story. It is idiotic. Dan Brown may first-class idea man, but as a storyteller, he sucks. His story lines are laughably implausible. That is, of course, unless you believe that someone could actually bust into the Vatican catacombs and pop open a dead pope's casket. Then they are perfectly plausible. No sooner had this concluded then one of the young guys in the office, a serious-as- a-heart-attack Catholic, strolls into cube Sneed and asks me a "what if" question. Specifically, what would I do if I went to church and the priest gave a sermon contrary to church teaching and contrary to my belief. In this case, ordaining women. I didn't tell him that it seems like a fine idea to me, which in retrospect would have caused him to flee in terror, leaving me free to resume my internet surfing. Instead, I told him I would just beat feet if it really bothered me. Not the answer he was going for. He suggested a strong letter of indignation was in order. Not to the offending priest, mind you, but to his boss. Why not? A pithy letter is always good. I told him that I thought writing a letter would make him feel better, but accomplish little else. I told him that he ought to write it to the guy he had issue with, not his boss. My experience is that American Catholic priests are a pretty liberal group, socially speaking, and that no matter how far up the chain-of-command he sent the letter, he would likely be ignored or condescended to. But hey, give it a go. My advice was, if writing a letter makes you feel better, then do it. However,you needs to decide if this is a deal-breaker at this particular church. If it is, then go to church elsewhere. But rest assured that the next place will have a guy who believes differently than you about something. Better yet though, just calm down and get on with life, just because he says it, doesn't mean you have to believe it. Off he went. He came back later to tell me that he had spoken to his mother and she agreed that this situation was intolerable and the priest was wrong, wrong, wrong. Then, he launched into a long diatribe that went something like this. "Blah, blah, blah, heresy, blah, blah, blah, disobedience to authority, blah, blah, blah, church teaching...blah, blah, blah." Bless the true believers, but man I have enough trouble with me. I don't have time to fix anyone else. Anyway it seems to me that people rarely really want advice, even when they ask. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong and sometimes just full of it. Tag: Daily Life Personal Finance Humor