Soiling & leaking

Let’s take a listen to a sound clip from a sermon given in Manhattan in April 2023:

To the best intentions, as always. Not off-script but off-guard. An all too typical bias sensationalizing bed pans, colostomies, catheters, feeding tubes, and the list goes on. Who doesn’t think so? Just because these are associated with weakness, vulnerability and dependency? Far from the end of the world such are the biomedical-engineering feats designed to free our hearts and minds from being overwhelmed by conditions there may be.

Does the sermon reflect more of Brother Jean, or of the pastor? Does it reveal to us more about Brother Jean, or about the pastor?

Over-confident that nobody sitting in the congregation had any condition similar to Brother Jean, the pastor was talking across and around a bunch of people sized-up as inferior. So inferior that none was expected in the audience. The pastor was damn sure. On social media, though, his very own parishioner posts, “I’m afraid of going out too much… Some of these things have been happening for a long time… Pooping my pants.” A fellow parishioner responds, “I pooped in my pants before the service tonight and had to leave my underpants in the garbage receptacle in the bathroom at [name of parish]. I played bells going commando. You’re the only person I have told and I guess whoever else might read this.”

It doesn’t matter which pastor that was, or from which parish. He is Pastor Tom, he is Pastor Dick, and he is Pastor Harry. Never mind the specific individual. Far from alone, he is one among many like-minded. He is no outlier. We can write epistles, “Dear Theophilus, …” and that would effectively address more people than it seemed.