Football Church

Okay, this is going to be a religious post, and if you are non-religious and blame religion on the ills of the world, this post will not be for you. And, if you are deeply religious and have no sense of humor (sadly, these two traits coincide rather regularly, almost predictably), this post is not for you. Do me and yourselves a service and go to the next blog. Really.

Okay, I was at church Sunday, and something annoyed me. Okay, I am Catholic, and unlike some of my protestant brethren, we move around a lot during Mass. I secretly think that in the early days of the church, they promoted physical exercise as well as spiritual exercise because, well, there was no Splenda® back then. Anyway, we go to the alter to get communion – and that means we leave our seat, march up, and then attempt to return to our seat. "Attempt" is the key word here, and this actually leads to my annoyance. You see, our pews (for heathens who know nothing about church furniture, a pew is a large, uncomfortable bench used to keep churchgoers awake during the boring parts of Mass/church) are not labeled. That is, all of our pews look about the same, and so returning to our seat is always a challenge, because of this design issue.

Anyway, Sunday morning, I was thinking that church pews would be improved if they are labeled so we can get back to the right seat. And, by the way, for you degenerates please don't go through ladies purses while they are receiving communion. I am pretty sure that is a straight way to hell for the twelve dollars and tic-tacs you scored. And if I am wrong, oh, well, you will have to purchase your own tic-tacs, but if I am right, you avoid spending an eternity in purgatory (side note: I don't actually believe this, but you know, so many do that I figure I would just throw this in here).

During the homily (serman for non-Catholics), I was thinking about other ways to improve the Church. We had a light crowd this morning (which is good for me, easy to park and I did not have to hold my coat in my lap), and it occurred to me that it might have been because it was "Championship Sunday." When the heck did they start labeling all of the various playoff Sundays?

Oh, well, back to my train of thought. If church was more like attending a football game, perhaps people would actually look forward to church (pssssssssss, God, I love going to church each Sunday. Or should I be speaking to Saint Peter? Is he the one that maintains your naughty and nice list? Oh, that is Santa. I mean your heaven or hell list?). But some people don't like going to church. This would bring in some of those on the fringe back into the fold. Since I am on the fringe with football, I think I can speak to this in an intelligent manner.

Football games have concessions. And for some of us, concessions are great. Can you imagine sitting in your pew, and being able to flag down a peanut guy? Hell, er, I mean heck (psssssssssss, God, saying hell is okay, right? I wasn't implying that I was doing advertising for the devil, God, honest.), wouldn't it be sort of cool to see peanuts flying in the air. And for an obnoxious kid, I would buy him some peanuts to shut him up.

And for hubbie, he would be able to buy beer on tap. That would be his treat for listening to a sermon on temperance. Well, not really (we are Catholic), but you get the idea. Perhaps one of the sermons on poking your eyes out when you lust after women. Do I have to poke my eyes out, too? I often wondered that. Well, not often.

And I am not sure that the church ought to have cheerleaders, but if they said uplifting cheers, perhaps it would help. "Give me a G, give me an O, give me a D. What does that spell? What does that spell? God!"

"God, push him back, push him back, push Satan way back!"

Cheerleading can be an asset to church. And if the old men start lusting after the cheerleaders in their outfits? Guess they can go to confession. Too bad there is no longer any indulgences or this cheerleading thing could be a cash flow opportunity for the church.

The church could install scoreboards, and I know what you are thinking, we could post the weekly collections on the scoreboard. Or we could post to the number of souls saved. What would be funny as hell, er, heck (sorry, God), is posting the number of churchgoers who leave early. For Catholics, it is right after Communion, but I guess, for other denominations, you have the same problem.

In that respect, I guess football and church is about the same. You have people leaving early to beat the traffic. No matter what entertainment they are seeing.