{"id":497,"date":"2011-09-14T12:07:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-14T12:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2011\/09\/mrs-brady-catholic-old-lady\/"},"modified":"2013-01-29T10:51:46","modified_gmt":"2013-01-29T15:51:46","slug":"mrs-brady-catholic-old-lady","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2011\/09\/mrs-brady-catholic-old-lady.html","title":{"rendered":"Mrs Brady Catholic Old Lady"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
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Freddy, why don\u2019t we take a break and sit on the porch for a few minutes? It was very sweet of you to leave all your college friends on a Saturday morning and help an old woman with yard work, but you\u2019re all sweaty and my poor old back is killing me.<\/p>\n

I think we can leave those azaleas until next week don\u2019t you? You will come and help again next Saturday won\u2019t you? Good. Well, I must say I enjoy your visits too. It doesn\u2019t matter if we don\u2019t get too much work done, and besides I think it\u2019s lunchtime. I just baked that bread this morning, and there\u2019s some ham left over from Sunday. I bet you\u2019d like a big ham sandwich. Do you want a pickle? Why don\u2019t you sit on the porch and relax with Samson while fix us some lunch. Do you like onion soup? Oh good!<\/p>\n

Here we are. Now I was interested in what you said last week about that church you go do sometimes with your friends. You know I went to one of those churches once with Mrs Hudson who lives across the street, and they invited me to \u201caccept Jesus into my heart.\u201d \u00a0Bless them, they didn\u2019t know I was brought up Baptist and knew all about that sort of thing already. So I said that I had already accepted Jesus not only into my heart, but into my stomach too. Because you see, I\u2019d been to Mass that morning. Oh dear, they didn\u2019t really know what to think, and I\u2019m afraid I might have offended them because they gave me a rather disagreeable look.<\/p>\n

Freddy dear, I\u2019m sure those folks are very sincere, and they are probably better Christians than I am, but I\u2019ve always been rather leery about all those emotional religious experiences. I\u2019m not one for holy huddles where everyone sits around and studies the Bible. Oh, don\u2019t get me wrong Freddy. I think the Bible is quite wonderful and read a chapter every night before bed. I know I\u2019m being petty and mean, but I\u00a0just found it tiresome to spend a whole evening with a group of other ladies only to discover what a particular Bible passage meant to Mildred Dawkins.<\/p>\n

Now Mildred\u2019s a very fine Christian woman, but she\u2019s not exactly a Bible scholar. Dear me, I\u2019m getting off the point. Let\u2019s see, where was I. Oh, yes, I\u2019ve never been very fond of these groups who try to get me to have some sort of exciting or comforting or pleasant religious experience. It seems too manufactured if you see what I mean. It\u2019s like this Freddy dear, I\u2019ve thought it through quite a lot you see, and it seems to me that if a religious experience is pleasant, then it is more likely that I have made it all up in my own mind\u2013it\u2019s sort of like wishful thinking. Do you know I once went to one of their charismatic prayer meetings and Mildred Dawkins went up to receive prayers from the preacher. My goodness! There were people falling over in a dead faint when he prayed over them and they were all crying out and laughing and saying they were filled with the Holy Spirit and then I noticed that when Mildred went forward she double checked to see if her catcher was there. The \u2018catcher\u2019 is the fellow they have there to catch them when they swoon. I sort of caught her at it. Goodness! looking back it was all rather funny. You see, Mildred had planned to swoon, and sure enough, when she toppled over and lay there on the floor she even arranged her skirt so nobody could look up it.<\/p>\n

So I said to Mildred the next day, \u201cMy dear, you looked like you were planning to swoon last night for the preacher.\u201d Of course she denied and has been rather huffy to me ever since.<\/p>\n

The point is dear Freddy, that if a religious experience is pleasant in some way it is more likely to have been something I\u2019ve sought out, and that\u2019s not quite right is it? It doesn\u2019t,\u00a0feel<\/em>\u00a0right somehow. For my part, I\u2019ve always felt closest to the good Lord when things are going wrong\u2013not when they\u2019re going right. I remember when Mr Brady died and my world rather fell apart. Then in the middle of it all I had the most wonderful sense of Jesus Christ being at my side. Oh, nothing warm and fuzzy or pleasing. I didn\u2019t swoon like Mildred Dawkins or anything like that. I just knew<\/em>\u00a0Christ at a deeper level than before.<\/p>\n

So if you don\u2019t like that sort of church they take you to, why I wouldn\u2019t go. Just come over here instead and tell them you\u2019re going to do yard work and we can have a nice chat and perhaps bake some cookies and take them over to Mr. Klondyke who everybody thinks is so grumpy, but who I have a rather soft spot for.<\/p>\n

Goodness, is that the time? Let\u2019s get the car out and I\u2019ll get you back to campus before you get yourself into trouble again.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Freddy, why don\u2019t we take a break and sit on the porch for a few minutes? It was very sweet of you to leave all your college friends on a Saturday morning and help an old woman with yard work, but you\u2019re all sweaty and my poor old back is killing me. I think we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,1],"tags":[4,94],"class_list":["post-497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mrs-brady-catholic-old-lady","category-uncategorized","tag-alter-egos","tag-humor"],"yoast_head":"\nMrs Brady Catholic Old Lady<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Freddy, why don't we take a break and sit on the porch for a few minutes? 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