Latte Luck!

I listen to a fair amount of evangelical Christian radio programming. A lot of it is pretty interesting, and obviously there's a fair amount of Scripture discussed, which I always find interesting.

Of course I have a few questions for evangelical radio preachers too.

For example, "How come you guys are all named Skip?"

Or Chip, or something like that. Try saying this with a straight face: "Chip, Cardinal Spellman."

Could you do it? Me neither.

Another question: if you folks are bent on sending missionaries to Italy, how come you call that your "Eye-talian program?" Come on, don't tell me nobody's ever told you how to pronounce the word!


One of the oddest sights I ever saw in my life was in JFK airport, in the lounge waiting for my flight to Rome. A group of young guys, maybe 20 years old, with short hair, neatly ironed clothes and neckties, giving each other stiff hugs. You know the form: no body contact, just arms on shoulders and hearty backslaps, reminds you of Heimie on "Get Smart."

They were joined by a group of girls about the same age- long ponytails, full skirts, big smiles. The girls shook hands with the boys,and let me tell you they were taking no chances- there was a good three feet between every hand-shaking pair. They had to bend at the waist just to reach each other.

I thought, No. It can't be.

But I had to know. So I got closer and cruised past their nametags.

Yup. I was right.

Mormon missionaries.

Bound for Rome.

All I could think was, Well kids, you certainly have a tough job ahead of you. Forget theology- you're going to go ito Italy, of all places, and tell them they have to give up wine and espresso? "Good people don't do lattes!"

To say nothing of the challenge of having multiple Italian wives.

[Oh, and for anyone who might be wondering: I listen to a lot of "alternative" radio, too. Better music.]

Comments

  1. I listened to quite a bit of local evangelical radio driving in and out of New Orleans over the past few weeks. Lots of time to kill, and no alternative radio after you get out of Baton Rouge range.

    No one does evangelical like the deep south. I was charmed by the relentless positivity of the preachers, especially black preachers. Very little whining about what had happened compared to the local talk radio.

    Also listened to odd-sounding Catholic Father Gruner (sp?) on the same station. Anyone familiar with him?

    Other point: certainly not all Mormons practice polygamy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous6:55 AM

    Susan, I always love your blogs :) I just want to make sure that you know, Mormons are NOT evangelical, and the evangelical Christian community declares mormonism as cult.

    I am a former Catholic turned evangelical Christian and I was just really hurt at being in any way associated with Mormons -- crazy unorthodox theology they have!


    Thanks, God bless

    ReplyDelete
  3. Karen- I wasn not implying that at all. They were two different stories. That was the reason for the double-spacing between them.

    The Mormon missionary story was a tie-in to the Italy stuff I've been writing lately.

    As for you, Jeffus- the polygamy thing was a JOKE.

    J-O-K-E.

    As reference to polygamy usually are. Even/especially by Mormons.

    See?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Were you calling me?

    -J.

    P.S. You may want to, in the future, put in a
    *************************
    sort of thing between stories, to avoid confusion and hurt feelings. AMHIK.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Father Nicholas Gruner, Publisher of "The Fatima Crusader" Magazine, I believe is a Canadian and I'm not exactly sure what his status is with the Church. But it's not full communion. I think it has something to do with Fatima promises and whether or not Russia has been "fully consecrated" as requested by the Blessed Mother. He says "not" and the sainted JPII said "yes."

    You want to talk about bad radio, I'll tell you about bad radio. Years ago, I was driving in way northern Minnesota heading towards the Canadian border and lost contact with all radio stations. Slowly a strong station from Winnipeg started coming in. It was the Silver Broom World Curling Championships being carried live from Switzerland. Now I know a little bit about curling, being born in Duluth, but listening to curling on radio would be far worse than listening to bocci ball on radio, let me tell you. It takes much longer.

    You know, as I go down the table of contents each day on my Catholic Blog List, the reading can get terribly depressing some days. I'm so glad that I've found "Desperate" recently.

    I'm going to have to rearrange my list to put you further away from The Curt Jester so I can break up my smiles and grins more evenly to ease the pain of the others.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous10:23 PM

    I've been passing by your blog lately, and just wanted to say thumbs up to your new template.

    Love the way you think.

    Gotcha bookmarked. Keep up the good work.

    I had a hearty laugh thinking about Mormon Missionaries in Rome. They'd have to settle for Orangina.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Susan, Take it from one of the Mormon missionaries who spent 2 years in Italy talking people out of wine and espresso. It was very difficult. My mission had about 100 missionaries. We baptised, on average, 5 people per month.

    One interesting story. Remember the movie with Harrison Ford, Witness? When they translated it into Italian they translated Amish as Mormon. I was never confused with an Evangelical but confused all the time with the Amish.

    Love your blog.
    L'Iddio ti benedico.
    Mike W

    ReplyDelete

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