Grape Vines Do It, Olive Trees Do it...

I am thankful for our musician in residence, Wallace Hartley, who is filling in for me as I take a much-needed break.

In a recent rambling sermon(?) at the Executive council of the Episcopal church, the Presiding Bishop came up with the following zinger when talking about how the Mormons are somehow related to the Episcopalians,

"We often in the church focus our attention on differences in reproductive customs and norms – yet both the grape vine and the olive tree has multiple ways to be generative. Flowers can be fertilized by pollen from the same plant or another one. The fruit and seeds that result are eaten by birds and animals and left to grow far from the original plant, yet they are still related. The vine also generates new branches from its rootstock or from distant parts of its branches. But all those kinds of vines and branches are related, however they come about." Katherine Jefferts Schori (March 21, 2015)

(Insert sound of head banging against a wall)

Most of us have stopped reading her sermons but this one somehow spoke to me. I think it was the part about "multiple ways to be generative."

Strike up the music Cole Porter!

Churches do it, tabernacles do it
Even educated mosques do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love 

Mormons in the inner sanctum do it
Lutherans and Episcopalians do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love 

The Orthodox in Greece do it
Not to mention the Wiccans who brew it,
Folks in Islam do it, let's fall in love. 

Hindus without means do it
Animists say even beans do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love 

Rabbis if they're lucky do it
Druids down in Stonehenge do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love 

Catholic priests 'gainst their wish, do it
Even the Amish do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love 

Presbyterians, I might add do it
Though it shocks 'em I know
Why ask if Satanists do it, the Devil told me so. 

In New York, New Agers do it
Polytheists in privacy do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love 

Apologies to Cole Porter.