From The Lost Collection of Unpublished Sunday Sermons: Got Quail?

Last night I was thinking about doing yoga---you know, Stretching in Sanskrit---but drank some tequila instead. This will, of course, getcha' to thinking about quails. A clear choice made to face a ruinous world in which the numbers never really add up or amount to enough to change the inevitable. I could either lament the absence of more tequila or I could read the Book of Numbers. I'm sure this choice also sounds familiar to those among you who have considered the consequences of too much God and too little tequila.

For a brief moment I considered a healthier alternative, perhaps some asana washed down by kale smoothie? It always helps when I'm genuinely depressed to think about doing some yoga (insert ordinary meaning). Of course that's invariably where it ends too. Thinking is exhausting enough. So to insure I wasn't going to think anymore much less do "yoga," I got about gettin’ on my wrathful, angry, fuckedup OldTestament Almighty. The Lord is good for some laughs when He (always a He) is not just fucking you royally. But we shouldn't be ungrateful and The Lord is also always (n.b., editor says never write "also always" unless you really mean it) a fine respite just when you think the world couldn't be more sideways. You know that you're more depressed than a night full of kirtan, and you're thinkin' to yerself I really need The Book of Numbers. Our Lord is One Anrgy Mofo in Numbers and sometimes that's exactly whatya' need. You know, angry but in a funny way 'cause Numbers is where the joke's on us. So I'm reading along in my broken nonexistent Hebrew and surprise, surprise we find out that Mo is having a particularly bad day. Or to put it a bit more plainly he is getting it on all sides. He's got every every reason to presume that God is behind this totalfuckness, cause him and God are on direct speaking terms. Bible makes that perfectly clear. So it's to God he complains. "Yo God, WTF?" is the usual meme that includes but never requires repeating the obvious "Us? Again? Don't you have other people out there to fuck?" But alas the matter that Mo is charged to unfuck involves feeding a veritable tribe of very hungry Israelites. It seems that the daily repast of mana has gotten mighty old. And the peeps are just plain hungry. And they are letting Mo know. But then, just when you think that The Lord God prefers only to fuck us entirely just for fun---not an unwarranted Book of Numbers kinda' day---HE comes through. But wouldn'ja' know He has a sense of humor about it. First, the Lord breaks wind. Yup. SAYS RIGHT HERE but then things get REALLY interesting. Lest you think I'm the one jesting here, I quoteth Scripture:
"Now a wind went out from the Lord and drove quail in from the sea. It scattered them up to two cubits deep all around the camp, as far as a day’s walk in any direction. All that day and night and all the next day the people went out and gathered quail. No one gathered less than ten homers." (Numbers 11:30something)
We can't be entirely sure how much constitutes ten "homers" but I am sure it's Biblical, which means we can substitute the more familiar "fuckload" for homers. But did you just read what I read? The Lord sends on his wind "quail in from the sea." Quail? Are the Israelites about to go from hardtack bisquit to haute cuisine? Just like God to send in the quail. So yeah, The Lord apparently sends, umm, quails. Not just quail. Not a mere bevey, covey, or queer of quail (donch'a love that quail come in different denominations?), but whole cubits deep homers. Go figure. Literally. I'll wait if you do the math. Just when you thought there was a dearth of tequila in your life, You Really Don't Have to Make This Shit Up comes to the rescue. Bless Numbers. God sends quail on a fragrant breeze. Now personally the thought of hungry folks pouncing on some poor little quail nearly asphyxiated by The Lord's broken wind is more than I can adequately lament. But we have another book entirely for Lamentations. Quail: It's what's for dinner? It took the Israelites "all day and night and all the next day" to finish the job. Not much meat on them quail, you know. And I wonder if they had time to take a break for some asana. Did they also run outta' tequila? Ask Mo. He takes complaints and, truth to tell, I ain't got nearly his connections.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

January 25th, 2024 UPDATE: Rajanaka Winter Sessions, Summer Camp, and a Free Session This Saturday

Image
  Thursday, January 25, 2024   Aho’Rajanaka,   I hope this finds you well.   We’re going to need each other this year, maybe more than ever.  Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse or weirder, it will and you’ll feel a lot better in good company.  It will be good to be in the conversation with you.   India Pilgrimage this year was pretty darn wonderful this year, gotta’ say.  Re-entry has been interesting.  (N.B., not every use of the word “interesting” is a good thing, much like the word “fragrant.”  Except when it isn’t.  You take my point?)  There are good stories yet to be told.  And there are a few more Pilgrimage Diaries yet to come.  I hope you’ve enjoyed these---all on the Rajanaka Substack and all free.   I thought it prudent to take another week before we begin Winter Semester.   It may some are actually looking forward to these Sessions, I sure am.   But I think we need to get the word out and refreshed. When was the last time (maybe ever?) that you had a solid, serious
Read more

Rajanaka Newsletter January 10 2023

January 10, 2023   Aho’Rajanaka,   I hope  you’re doing great  you’re well.    I think it’s safe to say ---wait, you know darn well that that  isn’t  safe to say--- that we’re learning more how “to live with.”    Living with ourselves may be the hardest yoga but it’s not the only.    There are others too.    Don’t you  always  just sometimes want to hit  ESC  and make it all go up and into the corner of your soul’s home screen?    We’re not eva’ going to be post-Covid, democracy like  most  everything else isn’t safe and secure  and never has been , and there’s no conclusion in sight.    Shall we add a dollop of gallows humor?  So rarely enjoyed in UnicornYogaWorld.     We  do  know that  sooner or later  the bleeding  does  stop. (<- Yes, I stole that from a doctor among you.)   Got meaning?   I’m teaching a University course this semester entitled  The Meaning of Life  and on the eve of the semester considering the educational value of dropping the entire proposed syllabus in favo
Read more

Rajanaka Newsletter February 3, 2024

Image
  Saturday, February 3, 2024   Aho’ Rajanaka,   I hope this finds you well.  The sun, well at least I think it’s the sun, has peeked through this wintry morning in Bristol.  My first reaction was “what’s that big orange thing in the sky.”  Then I remembered, oh yeah, there  is  a sun just not much ‘round here.  That’s cool, I say.  Short of catastrophe, every day has got its longs and shorts.  I really do want every day to be its blessing, even out here in the cold cloudy nowhere sane people would move to and mostly filled with rednecks wtf am I doing here Great Lakes.  It has its charms.  Living with yourself will be the hardest and the most important thing you ever do.  Lord knows, others will appreciate your efforts.  Well, maybe.   Good to keep it real, I say.  I am no optimist by nature because I find looking for the bright side is too much wishful thinking.  But the cynic or pessimist won’t do either because, if you think about it some, those attitudes create the  same deficiency
Read more