Have It Your Way!

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Order Taker (possibly female): Welcome! How may I serve you today?

Occasional Customer: Wow! A lot has changed since… well, to be honest, I haven’t been here since I was a kid.

Order Taker: And back then Kids Were King.

Customer: I’m glad to see your service has been restyled to keep up the changing times.

Order Taker: You’ll notice many changes. To begin with… the original menu was scrapped in favor of a more inclusive version.

Customer: Y’know, just being here… startin’ to feel filled with the Spirit of the King.

Order Taker: And how you feel is… like, way more important than nutrition.

Customer: Hey! What happened to those four guys, who used to hang around here? You know the ones… they’re gone!

Order Taker: Well, not gone gone. Just their toxic masculinity: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are now Margaret, Meg, Linda, and Joan.

Customer: Just as well. They were way too into all that red meat stuff.

 

Order Taker: We understand how you feel. That’s why we now offer 100% beef-less “Miracle” burgers, Surf n’ Turf, and char-broiled turkey with tofu.

Customer: Let me try the 𝐋𝐨𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐅𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐬 platter.

Order Taker: Sure! What kind of God would you like? We have…

He Made Me this Way
Our Mother Who Art in Heaven, and of course…
Somewhere Out There

Customer: Anything without all that fire and brimstone.

Order Taker: And with that, you have your choice of Messiahs: John Smith, Muhammad, Dak Prescott… .

Customer: Hold the Jesus.

Order Taker (tapping on console): No Jesus. I’ll substitute… Obama.

Customer: Commandments on the side?

Order Taker: Of course. How many would you like?

Customer: Can you run through them?

Order Taker: My pleasure! You’ve got your choice of:

Thou Shalt have No other gods but Thee
Remember the Sabbath to go Shopping
Honour Thy Father, thy Father’s Boyfriend…

Customer (interrupting): Uhhm, on second thought, 𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐮 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐭 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐬… give me gas.

Customer’s entitled kids (in unison): We want Happy Holiday Meals! We want Happy Holiday Meals!

Customer: Okay, settle down, kids.

Order Taker: Aren’t they cute.

Customer: …want one?

Order Taker: We have three all-new Happy Holiday Meals to choose from.

Customer: One of each, please.

Order Taker: Okay. The Non-traditional Combo Kit comes with Santa, the Grinch, and Frosty the Snow Person.

Youngest entitled kid: I want the Baby in the manger!

Order Taker: Oh, I’m sorry. We’re all out.

[Kid pouting]

Order taker (whispering to customer): The Infant served in a feeding trough was deemed unsanitary by the Board of Health. (Loudly to kid) But I can throw in some barking dogs.

Kid: Yea!

Order Taker: With the Prime Time TV Special, you have your choice of Rudolph, the Winter Warlock, Charlie in the Box, and of course, Kevin.

Customer: Kevin?

Order Taker: Home Alone.

Customer: Hold the Claymation. (whispers) I still get nightmares.

Order Taker: Finally, in Rainbow Delight, we have Mary, Mary’s migrant wife, and their adopted non-binary child, Xavier.

Customer: What do you have for that Holiday which coincides with Spring Break?

Order Taker: We’ve got all the classics like Easter Parade, The Old Rugged Cross… .

Customer: Uhh, no. I’ll take the bunny, please.

Order Taker: Cadbury or Playboy?

Customer: Whichever’s covered in chocolate.

Order Taker (pointing): Over at the 𝐌𝐲 𝐂𝐮𝐩 𝐑𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐡 𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫 beverage dispenser, we have endless refills of sugary, bubbly, and highly caffeinated watery substances.

Customer: All of which, I hope, are as unhealthy as they are unsatisfying.

Entitled kids: Supersize!

Customer looking around: Where did all the pews go?

Order Taker: They’ve been removed in favor of more secluded… err, private corral seating. This way you won’t be bothered by other worshipers. And notice…

Customer: I see!

Order Taker: …all the communion settings now hold pepper, salt substitute, and artificial sweeteners.

Customer: And every booth has its own jukebox!

Order Taker: …for a more personalized worship experience. Hymns include:

How Great I Art!
Oh Lord, It’s Hard to be Humble, and my personal favorite…
Drop Kick Me, Jesus (through the Goal Post of Life)

Customer singing with Order Taker: “…I’ve got the will, Lord, if you’ve got the toe.”

(Littlest kid whispers to Customer, who then asks…) Can you point me to your bathrooms?

Order Taker: Well, we only have the one.

Customer: One?

Order Taker: It is quite large and has many seats.

Customer: What about, y’know… privacy?

Order Taker: We are all one in the spirit.

Customer to littlest Kid: Just think of them as your brothers.

Order Taker: Will there be anything else?

Customer: Can I get all that t’go? I’m not really comfortable around all this religious stuff.

Order taker (signaling the kitchen choir): Of course, you can!

Deep Fat Fryer, Window Clerk, and Burger Flipper singing with Order Taker…

Hold the Father, hold the Spirit!
And of course, you don’t need Jesus!
All you ask is that you get religion your way!
Have it your way, have it your way… ! 

Customer: ♪ Biddiley a nu ba ba be bee!


The Cry of the Rocks
Truth can be ignored but cannot be made untrue. Truth just is, even if held by just one. One plus God.

Let’s Eat Grandma
Hold up on that blue haired buffet, we need a quick powwow with the shoot eating panda.

Blue Plate Special

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A taste of Americana: The Blue Plate Special was not only satisfying and nutritious, but for two bits… affordable.

But diners have since wandered away to the All You Can Eat buffet. Not because they were really hungry, but to eat more than they could fit on their plate while depriving others of the same.

Dietary justice isn’t about satisfying the hungry “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” but punishing those who got for the pleasure of those who got not.

…which is the whole purpose of our gotcha tax code – to restore some mythical equality out of inequality by taxing unequally. But reams of tax code later, we are unequal still.

Even flattening the menu into a single rate, the rich (suckers) would still pay more for benefits they would never ever use, than those sopping-up those benefits… for which they could never hope to pay.

“Diversity (of color and culture but not of income) is our Strength” …or so goes the bumper sticker.

Equality used to mean equal treatment by the law not because of the law, including an ‘even-steven’ tax code. But if that is still our ideal, we are a long way from home.

Our Constitution’s Head Chefs believed everyone should pay the same. Not the same rate…

The same amount.

But their original recipe 𝐀𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐥𝐞 𝐈, 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐈𝐗’𝐬 “one tax fits all” was democratically overthrown by Marx and Engels’ 16th Amendment: Gourmet for me but not for thee.

Of course, if diners actually had to pay out of pocket for everything they ordered, they’d never drool over someone else’s plate.

But the sinful and the selfish want it all, someone to pay for it all, and the law to tilt the table their way. The purpose of the law then is to take what they could not obtain without  the law, and provide what nature (and nature’s God) failed to supply. And in the process declare them morally justified.

“If righteousness comes by the Law, then Christ is dead in vain.”
Galatians 2:21

The ground is level at the foot of the cross.


Level Ground
We bless the Father and give the finger to our fellow man, then wonder why Dial A Prayer goes straight to voicemail.

Let’s Eat Grandma
Hold up on that blue haired buffet, we need a quick powwow with the shoot eating panda.

Among Thieves

Genesis 22:7 And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb? 8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb.

Isaiah 53:3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. 4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 5 He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

John 1:22 Who art thou? 23 I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord. 29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

John 10:9 I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. John 10:1 He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. John 10:10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. 11 I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.

Isaiah 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Luke 24:7 The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.

Matthew 27:11 And [Pilate] asked him: Art thou the King of the Jews? And Jesus said unto him, Thou sayest. 31 and led him away to crucify him.

Luke 23:33 And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him. Mark 15:27 And with him they crucify two thieves; the one on his right hand, and the other on his left. 28 And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith… Isaiah 53:12 He was numbered with the transgressors.

Luke 23:34 Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.

Luke 23:39 And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. 40 But the other rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. 42 And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. 43 And Jesus said unto him, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.

But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  Romans 5:8

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

John 20:1 The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulcher, and seeth the stone taken away. 15 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. 16 Jesus saith unto her, Mary.

John 14:6 I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. 27 Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.


The Cry of the Rocks
Truth can be ignored but cannot be made untrue. Truth just is, even if held by just one. One plus God.

Level Ground
There’s a baggage check at the altar. Come as you are. Don’t leave the way you came.