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Your email address will not be published.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

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 »

‘Round Here

Imagine someone, potentially anyone, even you, perhaps, but let us, in any case, say. Yes, you. You pull into the diner – Earl’s, Norm’s, Dinah’s, something like that. A sort-of Googie architecture … but maybe not quite, as if it’d been a little late for the Space Age, and late is the one thing you

Read More »

Random

Protective Covering

A wayback bit of my memory mentions to me how George Thorogood and Bob Seger each felt, responded, etc., when asked to play their single most widely known songs — which are of course this one and this one, respectively — for live shows. Elements of the discussion — one article, with thoughts from both?

Read More »

Talks With A Duck

Obscured in the kerfuffle over Mr. Robertson’s coarser comments on the Fairer Sex is a simple fact that any five-year-old can tell us: Adults say the darnedest things. This has since been confirmed by the comments of many other adults, critiquing the original notes on the female form offered by the “Duck Dynasty” patriarch — responses

Read More »

Whither Tebow?

So the question now is whether the future holds a place for Tim Tebow in the NFL. Well my goodness they didn’t think he belonged there before Peyton Manning signed with the Broncos … so who cares what they say now? When he was succeeding, they said he shouldn’t be. He just shouldn’t. Why not?

Read More »

Take Up Do

In my mid-20s — half an age (mine) and still nearly nil on maturity ago — I noticed a thing that at the time was massive but in retrospect, as such immensities often are after the time, obviously is something millions of others have noticed through all their times. At least one hopes. I noticed

Read More »

Related

Bread

“We’re sorry,” said the man, pointing. “We ain’t much here.” The woman, they guessed his wife by the way she puttered around, doing many small things but nothing really, was shaking her head. The two were indicating the table, which indeed was sparse: bread of some kind, though it looked fresh baked at least, with

Read More »

Closer

Norm’s is the kind of restaurant where across the street there is a long car wash, a 12-unit apartment building, a donut shop open most of the hours Norm’s is open, a strip mall with a “Luxury Day Spa” between the cigarette store and the cut-rate auto insurance broker: “Free SR-22 Filings!” the sign says. It’s

Read More »

True Romance

Mentioned last week the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, a term used in film to refer to a female — not a woman, mark you, but a girl or perhaps female, depending on the level of [im]maturity — who exists in a story not for herself, more deeply not as a Self, but only for the

Read More »

Animal Planet

We’re watching Planet of the Apes. No, not the Charlton Heston one — this one. Only it’s supposed to be this one, from last year. So we’re on the middle one, the “first remake” (excluding the 17 sequels to the Charlton Heston one) and it’s by Tim Burton, with all that that entails, from Helena

Read More »