Total Recall

Don’t stop me if you’ve heard this one …

There was a woman who claimed to talk with God — not to Him, but with Him. The tale was well-told around town, in which there was also a priest.

The priest one day after Mass asked to speak with the woman and when they’d settled into chairs he said, ‘I’m told you speak with God.’

‘Yes, Father,’ said the woman. ‘We’re told to do so by the Holy Church.’

‘Yes,’ said the priest. ‘And He also speaks with you?’

‘Yes, Father,’ she said. ‘We’re told of times like that, too.’

‘I’d like you to do something for me,’ said the priest.

‘Certainly, Father.’

‘The next time you talk with God, and He talks with you, I want you to ask him a question for me, then give me a call — no matter what time.’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘What wd you like me to ask Him?’

‘Ask Him what sins I confessed that week.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Sins,’ said the man. ‘Ask Him what I confessed. Then call and tell me what he said.’

‘Alright, Father.’

Several weeks passed and to be entirely truthful about it the priest began to think less about what he’d asked until it wasn’t generally at the fore of his thoughts.

Then early one morning the phone rang.

Early.

‘Hzzh,’ he said into the phone.

‘Father, it’s me,’ said a voice.

The priest sat up in bed.

‘Yes of course,’ he said.

‘Talked with God, again.’

‘Certainly; what’d he say?’

‘I asked him what you said.’

‘Yes, yes — of course. And … ?’

‘About what sins you confessed.’

‘And?’

‘He doesn’t remember.’

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent

And Did Dostoevsky Say ‘Beauty Will Save’

Short answer: he did not. Neither did Prince Myshkin, that we know of. Likely both believed it. Beauty — in the person of Christ — will do so. And clearly D wrote of M in The Idiot to explore art and beauty and ugliness and salvation. But did he say it, and did he believe that

Read More »

What I Recalled Watching Netflix

[Television is educational.]   One Saying the same stuff over and over looks like you have different things to say. Two If you’re ever in a below-average film or streaming series, and you beat the tar out of a guy, in a house, and you gaze down in both some shock as also a certain

Read More »

Seeking the King

A line everywhere misattributed to Chesterton reads thus: The young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God. This line is not from the great [several senses of the word] man who recently celebrated his 150th birthday, but the mid-century most unmodern novelist Bruce Marshall. The words — which do

Read More »

He’s the Guy

Those social media posts of ‘this moment in this famous film was totally unscripted!!!’ as if that by itself makes it better miss the point. Moat unscripted material, like most ideas, inventions, ideas, notions, &c … fails — such is the nature of creativity: the best stuff, it is devoutly to be wished, sticks around;

Read More »

Random

Sign Posts

The physician must be able to tell the antecedents, know the present, and foretell the future — must mediate these things, and have two special objects in view with regard to disease, namely, to do good or to do no harm. The art consists in three things — the disease, the patient, and the physician. The physician

Read More »

I’ve Said Too Much

There’s a danger of saying too much. There’s always that. I wrote previously and succinctly about stories. Here’s a longer exploration I’ve been working on, off and on, for about a year. * Every true story starts with realizing something is out of place and involves people asking who they are in a world where things (they now see)

Read More »

He’s the Guy

Those social media posts of ‘this moment in this famous film was totally unscripted!!!’ as if that by itself makes it better miss the point. Moat unscripted material, like most ideas, inventions, ideas, notions, &c … fails — such is the nature of creativity: the best stuff, it is devoutly to be wished, sticks around;

Read More »

Related

One Question, Two Answers

How to be really great Your life will be immeasurably great — incalculably awesome — if you put others in place of … you.  We will be great if we put others before us.  That is, if we put them first. One week at church, a pastor culled some points from a book on Christian

Read More »

Hey Babe, Wanna Increase My Downline?

This wouldn’t be the first time someone “posted” a “blog” on their “website” while having nothing to say. Well, not nothing exactly, but certainly not being sure exactly what he wants to say. But then that’s part of what a blog is, or was. Or maybe that’s just the bad kind; definitely it’s the old

Read More »

Murder, Inc.

In Season One’s “Ransom for a Dead Man” Columbo tells a story about his cousin Ralph. He’s flying in Leslie Williams’ plane and she’s been talking about her husband, whom she’s murdered. By the story he tells after they’ve landed, he enters the murderer’s mind — with a significant stopping point: “I have this cousin, Ralph,

Read More »

On (Not) Using Words

Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words. Quick now — who said that? Me. Just now. Weren’t you paying attention? The saying is sometimes attributed to Francis of Assisi, most likely erroneously, as many are gleefully wont to revel in and reveal, should someone dare voice the view. To which the only

Read More »