Yesterday, on the road again, my actress and I attended a Vigil Mass somewhere in America. It was definitely America, though it may not have been a Mass. The priest was a 70-something soft-spoken slow moving effeminate fellow, and the music was all the Bad Stuff, about a dozen of the worst "hymns" played over and over again on piano before Mass even started, kind of like an episode of The Twilight Zone where you're trapped in an elevator with horrible "muzak" and nobody else trapped with you seems to mind or even notice. The priest assured us in the homily that when Moses lifted his arms and God's staff before the Israelites battling Amalek ( Ex. 17:8-13 ), he was "giving them instructions on the battle," showing them where to attack and where to draw back, and so forth. Far from being miraculous (which the text implies, the strength of Israel growing when the staff of God was raised and faltering when it was lowered), this was merely a n...
Godot has finally arrived - but he's a multi-level marketing salesman and you can't get him to shut up.