Dastardly Doodlings

by Kim Fabricius

What’s the best way to find God? Set out at night – and go in the opposite direction.

Does God speak to me? It’s a question that I myself have put to the Lord. I never get an answer. The devil, however – he won’t STFU.

A word of advice: if you believe “it’s the thought that counts”, don’t get married.

Don’t you just love the expression “good behaviour”? A euphemism, of course, for “not-getting-caught” behaviour.

We know that we will die, but we figure that in my case an exception might be made.

There is a paradox to writing good sentences, namely, that by cutting out the fat, you add to their weight.

Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, but who sits on the left? The Holy Spirit, of course. Though he doesn’t actually sit, he perches.

Alternatively: Karl Barth is the Lord’s right-hand man (though Rudolf Bultmann tries to grab the seat when Barth goes for a pee).

J. W. Schopf, an American paleobiologist, claims that “for four-fifths of our history, our planet was populated by pond scum.” A cultural anthropologist, let alone a Calvinist, would beg to differ: make that five-fifths.

“You are who you’ve been.” This truth is universal, but Trump certainly makes a particularly alarming and chastening case study.

Hurricanes Harvey and Irma? What hurricanes? It’s fake weather fabricated by a conspiracy of meteorological elites.

Until recently, during his morning shave Trump would look in the mirror and say, “Handsome devil!” Nowadays, with Robert Mueller and “Sheriff Joe” in mind, he says, “Pardon me.”

As for Trump’s court prophets – Falwell, Graham, Carson, et. al – if Trump makes my skin crawl, they make my blood boil. Their faith is textbook ideology and their churches – well, they’re not churches, they’re movements.

How timely: in The Handmaid’s Tale, Commander Fred Waterford combines in his character the specific misogynies of both Mike Pence and Donald Trump: from the former, that women are for fertilising; from the latter, that women are for fondling.

It is not surprising that Baby Boomer white American evangelical males love war: old men sending young men to kill and die – it expresses, confirms, and globalises their Second Amendment fetishism, their militant androcentrism, and their perverse doctrine of penal substitution.

Did you hear about the evangelical youth club leader who rented a DVD of There Will Be Blood to show to a group of 17-year-olds? She thought it was an educational film about a bride’s wedding night.

Jesus said, “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the Gates of Hell will not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:26). A prophecy Bill is doing his damnedest to falsify.

“No one can become a theologian unless he becomes one without Aristotle.”—John Milbank. Oops, Stanley Hauerwas. Sorry, I mean Eleutherius.

What conservatives don’t get is the Bible’s unreliable narration; what liberals don’t get is the Bible’s indefectible veracity.

So “Researchers are fairly successfully uncovering an ocean of evidence to suggest that living in the ‘information ecosystem’ of smartphone, internet and social media is seriously detrimental to our mental health and cognitive capacity” (i, 6 September). What does that even mean? Researchers – the wankers are always out to get you.

BREAKING NEWS: A comprehensive examination of the ancient object recently discovered near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem demonstrates that it is not, as some archaeologists have claimed, the spear with which Jesus’ side was pierced (John 19:34): it is, rather, a first century Roman centurion’s selfie stick.

Speaking at the Labour Party Conference, Naomi Klein declaimed, “You know that horrible thing currently clogging up the London sewers. I believe they call it a fatberg [“a congealed lump of fat, sanitary napkins, wet wipes, condoms, and similar items” (Wikipedia)].  Well, Trump, he’s the political equivalent of that.” Thus another political radical goes soft in middle age.

The more I pray, the less I know what praying is – especially (cf. Augustine on time) if you ask me.

Samuel Johnson said that “people need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed”, but those were the days when people didn’t suffer from the pathologies of historical amnesia and cultural presentism.

Clearly the best way to prevent mass shootings at concerts is for every concert-goer to be armed with an automatic weapon. Multiple-thousands of guns in a packed arena or stadium are bound to make it a safer place, guaranteeing music-lovers an enjoyable, fear-free evening. Indeed for complete peace of mind – because a massacre might be launched from, say, an upper floor in a hotel across the street – concert-goers should consider renting mortars or bazookas, or even portable surface-to-air missile launchers lest the killer deploy a drone – all available from on-site kiosks provided by your friendly local NRA. As President Trump comforted the families and friends of the dead and wounded in Las Vegas, “We are here for you.”