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Sermonette
Aug. 24th, 2002 01:09 amWelcome congregants, passersby, architecture tourists and people from Opie and Anthony having sex in the vestibule here at the Little Cyber-Church of My Profound Dyspepsia. The subject of today's sermon is the Role of Religion in Public Places.
For various reasons, none of them very compelling, I was on the train home at lunchtime. Standing over by one of the poles (he wouldn't take my seat) was a man, elderly and perhaps five feet four inches tall and maybe ninety pounds dripping wet and carrying a heavy book he wasn't reading and wearing one shoe with an eight inch built-up sole because his right leg was that much shorter than his left.
At Long Island City (our story takes place on the fabled 7 train, the magic carpet of the generation before the second generation the doctors and lawyers come from)a large guy in a t-shirt from a local union gets on (he either is or knows a painter, 'cause he has the t-shirt). Of such a height as A Certain Kind of Male Person will always describe as six feet and heavy set. Plants himself next to the pole and leans on it full body.
Needless to say, this is not a comfortable situation for the gentleman who is already using the pole, whose hand is now trapped, and who indicates his discomfiture to our friend in the t-shirt. Who says "You don't get it, do you?" and rolls his back against the pole to make the little guy let go.
Now, for those of you who haven't ever had the pleasure of a ride on the 7 train, the relevant facts are these: it's above ground in most of Queens and for much of that stretch it's like riding a rollercoaster. (It's also the train you take to get to get to Flushing Meadow Park, the tennis stadium and Shea. The John Rocker line.) Not, at any rate, a train you want to be riding without something to hold onto. I myself, although unusually gifted in the center of gravity area, wouldn't do it if I had a choice.
The little man ended up stretched to hold onto the pole over the jerk's head, at least for as long as it took the jerk to notice that there was a small amount of room between me and the woman next to me, which he shoehorned himself into.
Whereupon Keith (that was young Lochinvar's name, Keith) started a rousing conversation with the woman on the other side about how hard it is for him to be a Christian in the middle of all the devils who live in Queens. He mentioned Kew Gardens by name, but given his imperfect grasp of geography he could have meants jews or muslims. Hypothetically, he could have meant hindus. Coulda been all three. I suspect he just meant Them.
Into everyone's life, my children, the universe occasionally drops a Keith the Christian to keep us from getting smug about the world we live in (although you wouldn't think that was such a risk in these parlous times, would you?).
Now, if I were going to take the cheap shot here, I could point out that you could have looked out of the window of our train and not seen the Twin Towers from where we were, but it would be an extremely cheap rhetorical device and I would be vaguely ashamed of using it.
On the other hand, it's five in the damn morning, what the hell. I can coulter in a good cause.
Keith, did he but know, shares a religion with the people who crashed those planes. Keith isn't an honest christian any more than those drunken lapdancer-hiring ascetics were honest muslims. Keith worships Keith. He judges the world not by the religion he claims to profess but by how closely it synchs up with some inchoate paradigm of keithness tucked away in his head. Keith's platonic ideal is his shaving mirror.
Keith, luckily for the future of our country, finds little to worship on the seven train
For various reasons, none of them very compelling, I was on the train home at lunchtime. Standing over by one of the poles (he wouldn't take my seat) was a man, elderly and perhaps five feet four inches tall and maybe ninety pounds dripping wet and carrying a heavy book he wasn't reading and wearing one shoe with an eight inch built-up sole because his right leg was that much shorter than his left.
At Long Island City (our story takes place on the fabled 7 train, the magic carpet of the generation before the second generation the doctors and lawyers come from)a large guy in a t-shirt from a local union gets on (he either is or knows a painter, 'cause he has the t-shirt). Of such a height as A Certain Kind of Male Person will always describe as six feet and heavy set. Plants himself next to the pole and leans on it full body.
Needless to say, this is not a comfortable situation for the gentleman who is already using the pole, whose hand is now trapped, and who indicates his discomfiture to our friend in the t-shirt. Who says "You don't get it, do you?" and rolls his back against the pole to make the little guy let go.
Now, for those of you who haven't ever had the pleasure of a ride on the 7 train, the relevant facts are these: it's above ground in most of Queens and for much of that stretch it's like riding a rollercoaster. (It's also the train you take to get to get to Flushing Meadow Park, the tennis stadium and Shea. The John Rocker line.) Not, at any rate, a train you want to be riding without something to hold onto. I myself, although unusually gifted in the center of gravity area, wouldn't do it if I had a choice.
The little man ended up stretched to hold onto the pole over the jerk's head, at least for as long as it took the jerk to notice that there was a small amount of room between me and the woman next to me, which he shoehorned himself into.
Whereupon Keith (that was young Lochinvar's name, Keith) started a rousing conversation with the woman on the other side about how hard it is for him to be a Christian in the middle of all the devils who live in Queens. He mentioned Kew Gardens by name, but given his imperfect grasp of geography he could have meants jews or muslims. Hypothetically, he could have meant hindus. Coulda been all three. I suspect he just meant Them.
Into everyone's life, my children, the universe occasionally drops a Keith the Christian to keep us from getting smug about the world we live in (although you wouldn't think that was such a risk in these parlous times, would you?).
Now, if I were going to take the cheap shot here, I could point out that you could have looked out of the window of our train and not seen the Twin Towers from where we were, but it would be an extremely cheap rhetorical device and I would be vaguely ashamed of using it.
On the other hand, it's five in the damn morning, what the hell. I can coulter in a good cause.
Keith, did he but know, shares a religion with the people who crashed those planes. Keith isn't an honest christian any more than those drunken lapdancer-hiring ascetics were honest muslims. Keith worships Keith. He judges the world not by the religion he claims to profess but by how closely it synchs up with some inchoate paradigm of keithness tucked away in his head. Keith's platonic ideal is his shaving mirror.
Keith, luckily for the future of our country, finds little to worship on the seven train
