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I love to play softball. It’s really one of my favorite things in life. I get all antsy and excited every winter in anticipation of the upcoming season. I start calling the team to see if they are rated to practice yet by mid-January.

This year’s been tough though. I’m older and both my shoulders are wearing some, my knee is in a lot of pain, and my back is bothering me. I got home from my games this past Sunday gimping around some knowing that my wife was just going to look at me with the same face as every other weekend. That face that says, “What did you hurt this time?” It’s gotten bad enough that I actually went to the doctor last week and here referred me to a slew of specialists, prescribed to me some medication, and left me feeling that my only hope would be surgery.

Then I came home on Sunday. There laying on the counter was a letter addressed to “RESIDENT - TO A FRIEND”. Well, it is my address, although I’m not sure since there is no return address on the front if it is my friend or I am their’s. On the back, though, is this line, “We pray that you will bless someone in this home spiritually, physically & financially.” Wow. I need physical and financial help! This must be my friend.

So I immediately open this letter and begin reading.  Although they don’t want me to read everything. They’ve highlighted some words in bold and circled and underlined others with blue crayon, so I should only read those words.

God’s holy blessing power is in the enclosed anointed prayer rug of faith we are loaning you to use!!!

Wow!  There’s a rug in here somewhere.  I need to find it.  I need to know how they got a rug in here.  To be sure I’m thinking of the right thing, though, I have my daughter, who’s anxiously clinging to each and every word I read, go get the dictionary.  After I explain to her where I keep the books in my office and that there’s a book in there called a dictionary that has words in it and definitions, a light goes on and she retrieves the dusty book.

I learn that rug is a noun and can be any one of the following:

1.  Lap robe
2.  a piece of thick heavy fabric that usu. has  a nap or pile and is used as a floor covering
3.  a floor mat of an animal pelt
4.  slang:  toupee

Doesn’t seem this envelope has anything that fits the definition. I have to know though. Oh, and it seems I have only 24 hours to use this rug. What? I ask my wife how long this has been sitting here. She doesn’t know. It’s Sunday and I have only 24 hours. Mail doesn’t come on Sundays!

I read further.

When you use the Faith Church Prayer Rug, go into a room where you can be alone (just God and you). Turn off the television and radio and try to be by yourself when you kneel on this Holy Ghost, Bible Prayer Rug, or spread it over your knees. We want this Church Ministry, Prayer Rug to be touching both of your knees as you pray for the needs you are facing right now. It is going to be like you are kneeling before God All Mighty at the altar inside a great church of blessings. If you need more joy, peace health, money, a new car, a new house, healing in family communication, or whatever, we, as a very old (57 years) church, want to know about it. Check your prayer needs on page two of this letter. Talk to us.

So I can get a new car? A new house? Doesn’t seem like a good idea to kneel with my knees in their condition. So I read further. This letter is signed by “Saint Matthew’s Senior Bishop.” Apparently the Senior Bishop has no name. There is a check box with a list of what I can pray for and how much I wish to donate to their church. They apparently want their rug back.

I go through the rest of the paperwork and there it is. A 11″ x 17″ piece of paper that looks as if it were modeled after a rug. It has Jesus in his crown of thorns in the center. A tear rolling down his left cheek. A piece of paper that looks like it is a color photocopy of a rug is not a rug.

This place is based in Oklahoma. Who the fuck bites on this shit?

When I get garbage like this in my mailbox, it makes me think that Christians are just stupid. That if there is anybody willing to give money to a joke like this, then they deserve all the misfortune that will come to them.

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Posted in General, Religion