Wednesday, October 10, 2012

We have a winner


I'm trying to picture how this works.

Let's say I'm spiritually deficient and looking for answers. Answers to questions of the highest order. Who am I? Why am I? Why are we here? Is there life after death? Why does my neighbor have to do his boxing speed work at 2  o'clock in the morning?

And let's say I'm looking at options. And there are lots of options. There's the learned clannishness of the Jews. The dogmatic submissiveness requested by Allah. Or the countless variations and denominations of those who follow in the flip-flops of Jesus.

Of course, if I were truly open-minded I could look beyond the great Abrahamic faiths and explore polytheism or pantheism.

Where oh where shall I worship?

I know, I'll turn to the Culver City News, the throwaway rag that gets tossed in my driveway by two stoned Mexican guys in a van and often reaches my table waterlogged from the broken lawn sprinklers that go off like clockwork. The same 8-page newspaper that is staffed by a part time real estate agent, the local barber and a teaching assistant who offers an elective class on journalism at Culver City High School.

Not only did they apply their collective brainpower to solve this age old question, they staged a contest to determine the best place to worship.

Naturally, I'd like to know what criteria they used. Was it the comfort of the pews? The friendliness of the clergy? Or the quality of cupcakes at the Sunday (or Saturday) Bake Sale?

I'm sorry Culver City News, and by proxy Grace Lutheran Church, when it comes to faith and spiritual sustenance, I'm not going to the same newspaper where I get my discount coupons for dry cleaning at the Raintree Plaza.

Call me old fashioned, but I'm going to Yelp.

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